The Eidyn series is criminally underrated. I wish more people would give it a chance, especially if you love classic fantasy. It has a great magic system, and its characters are fantastic. Before reading The Bitter Crown, I reread The Lost War, and I enjoyed it just as much as I did the first time. However, if you don't want to reread The Lost War, Anderson cleverly recaps the story in the prologue.

Where book one was all action and plot, book two is heavily character-focused. There are so many interesting ones to follow, and I enjoyed spending time with them. One character in particular stood out to me, and I kept wishing for that point of view. She’s so compelling, and I wanted more of her. I was frustrated with some of the choices the characters made but in a good way. Anderson keeps you guessing and doesn’t make it easy to predict where things are going.

I will note that I did prefer book one only because some parts of this one felt repetitive. There’s also a specific magic element that removes a lot of the book's tension, and I wish it hadn’t been used quite so much. Despite this, I am very excited to read book three in August 2025.

Thank you to NetGalley and Orbit books, for a gifted copy in exchange for an honest review.

Picked right up basically from book 1 and carried the narrative forward of trying to get as many people back into the know of what had happened as possible.
The writing and plot definitely improved with this one for me as well as having a better balance of action/plot/intrigue.
Some of the characters really got on my nerves with all the bad decisions and lack of communication going on even among the two who should have the most communication! I'm hoping this was a narrative choice and gets resolved later on as opposed to just being what the characters were doing with no regards to how it all comes together in the end.
This is a very classic fantasy feeling story which is super nice and needed I feel in the current fantasy space, while still having so many unique and fun twists with a more modern and quick tone that helped the story move forward.

4.25/5 stars! The first book in this series was excellent so I was very excited to get a chance to read book two in the Eidyn series. This was an epic sequel in a war-torn land. There is such strong character development between the leads and loyalties are tested. The 'cliffhanger' to book two is less drastic than book one, which I appreciated as I was outraged about waiting for this book's release. Quell continues to be my favorite character.

I received a free copy of this book via NetGalley and am voluntarily leaving a review

Cela continue d’être une histoire épique avec des aspects sociaux compliqués. Aranok est revenu avec le roi exilé et est sur le point de le restaurer. Il y a juste un problème ou deux sur son chemin. Premièrement, il y a un fléau magique qui touche des milliers de personnes. Deuxièmement, tout le monde croit que le roi qui siège sur le trône est le bon. Troisièmement, il y a juste un petit problème avec les voisins avec lesquels tout le monde pense être en guerre. La saga se poursuit avec des rencontres horribles, des dépressions mentales, la difficulté de décider qui a réellement raison ou tort dans ces situations. C'est une histoire brillamment tissée avec des personnages intrigants et une intrigue qui vous fait avancer avec bonheur. Je recommande vivement ce roman et j'attends le prochain avec impatience. Merci à netgalley pour la possibilité de lire et de revoir cette histoire.

Review copy (eARC) provided via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This is the second entry in the four-book series "The Eidyn Saga," and it continues the tone and world-building from "The Lost War" - in fact, it improves greatly upon it.

It's dark and fun. Definitely give it a shot!

I find myself in a very strange position when it comes to The Bitter Crown, by Justin Lee Anderson. It’s the second book in the Eidyn series and I struggled heavily with book one: The Lost War (I highly recommend you read my review for context). I found that my difficulties with book one were greatly alleviated by one of the best twist endings in recent memory. While I struggled with the themes and prose of book one, gosh darn it, if it didn’t have some of the coolest reveals and ideas that I have read in a fantasy book in a long time. As such, I eventually decided that I liked the ending of book one enough to try the sequel. Having finished The Bitter Crown, I now feel like I can give a fair assessment of whether I recommend the series or not, and the answer is a lukewarm no.

Avoiding spoiling any of the plots in general, without the massive twists offered by book one I just didn’t find enough in book two to justify the time spent here. I have always been someone who struggles to get by on the plot of a book alone. There is rarely a plot so cool that I am enchanted solely by “things happening” without investment in the people and ideas driving the events. I thought Eidyn might be a rare exception to this, but The Bitter Crown felt like a lot of moving around and talking without major plot developments. This gave me too much time with the parts of the prose that I don’t think holds up and not enough time being dazzled by cool stuff.

I struggled with the dialogue across the board. The setting is steeped in rich fantasy lore, but everyone talks like a dramatic teen group chat in 2024. Part of this issue can be explained by the plot, but I simply could not keep my disbelief consistently suspended. Plus, none of the dialogue made any traction in endearing the characters to me and that was a place that desperately needed attention.

The characters were a mess, with several of them designed to be unlikable with too much success. The themes in The Bitter Crown revolve around this constant “both sides” idea where there are magic users and non-magic users locked in a societal conflict and the reader needs to pick a side. In order to make this choice interesting, information is very obviously hidden away so that Anderson can make one side seem right and then reveal a juicy morsel that causes the reader to reconsider. I think the hope was that we would flop back and forth with each new reveal in shocking twists and turns. Unfortunately, the two sides sorta boil down to: non-magic users want to genocide the mages out of fear, and the mages don’t want to die. This makes it increasingly hard to take the side of any non-mage and really made me dislike some characters that I think I was supposed to like (like the king and queen).

Ultimately, I do not think I am going to continue on with Eidyn. Anderson has some incredibly cool ideas contained in this story, but the minutia of how they are implemented is simply not working for me. Despite thinking the plot was very interesting I struggled to care about the cast and I found much of the dialogue grating. Still, I can very easily see this book being on a top list of 2024 for someone else.

Rating: The Bitter Crown – 5.0/10
-Andrew

Really good sequel, but not as good as book one. Feels like a middle book but I was still invested in it. After the twist in book one, my expectations were maybe a little too high. Excited to see where it all goes!

This was a solid follow up novel in this epic fantasy series. Like the first book, this second one continues to play it safe leaning into traditional tropes of the genre. That being said, it did a good job of executing those familiar plot points. As a middle book, I was pleased that this one had substance and advanced the plot forward.

If you are looking for a new fantasy series and don't mind a familiar storyline, I would recommend this series which starts with The Lost War.

Disclaimer I received a copy of this book from the publisher.

Finally got to reading the series and don’t regret it at all. Really enjoyed this book, well written and characters were great. Only complaint is Samily and Nirea but it’s on their characters themselves, they’re both dumb. Pretty much set up a third book but made the journey harder, fairly sure the way they maneuvered in this book will have lead to more deaths than doing it Aranok’s way even if he was “compromised”

I absolutely adore this series. I am a high fantasy girlie through and through and the Eidyn series is the perfect mix of classic epic fantasy and fast paced storytelling. The Bitter Crown is the follow up to the first book The Lost War. It does a great job of quickly catching the reader up and jogging your memory of the first book's events without being redundant.

The world building, the characters, the action, the adventure, the magic... it all is perfection for the story. This sequel may even be better than the first installment of the story.

Justin Lee Anderson's The Lost War ended in one of the best executed and jaw dropping twists in epic fantasy. It completely up ended everything that I thought I knew about the book, this world, and these characters. I still remember exactly where I was (waiting in a way too long layover at the Las Vegas airport) when I closed The Lost War, kicking at myself for not seeing the twist coming and cheering Anderson for dropping SO MANY HINTS and yet still pulling the wool over my eyes. I'm going to continue to rest of this review assuming that you have already read The Lost War and know the big twist. So, if you haven't read The Lost War go pick it up immediately, and then come back here for my thoughts on The Bitter Crown.

SPOILERS FOR THE LOST WAR FROM HERE ON OUT

Whether it is a book, tv show, or movie, there is nothing I love better than a good cliffhanger. I don't binge book series because I love reeling from a big twist, anticipating the next volume, and letting the shock and awe marinate in my head. Whether the next book in the series is already published or I'm intentionally holding off reading an already published sequel, cliffhangers and big twists work best when you know that you won't get a resolution in the near future. And oh boy did The Lost War deliver on those fronts. Everything we knew about the world of The Lost War was wrong - the bad guy was good and the good guy was bad. What seemed like established character relationships were...not so established and everyone actually occupied a different role. These characters we spent a chunky book getting to know were not who they really were....and then the book essentially smashed to black.

Luckily Orbit books didn't wait TOO long to get The Bitter Crown into our hands. The roughly 7 month wait between the books was absolutely perfect; enough time for me to build up the anticipation but not so long that I stopped caring.

But as the publication date for The Bitter Crown arrived I starte to feel a bit of anxiety. I loved the twist in The Lost War so much; would I be dissapointed here? As a self-described "stan" of cliffhanger endings, I am intimately aware that while cliffhangers are often wonderful, their resolutions are often less that satisfactory. Authors pull great cliffhangers to get you to come back to the next book, but then don't know how to move on from there. Cliffhangers are often world, plot, and/or character breaking in a way that risks destroying the story. Many authors spend sequels (often in the dreaded "middle book syndrome") twisting, contorting, resetting, or explaining away a giant twist in order to re-establish the status quo. To get back to the comfortable world and characters that the author has built up.

I couldn't help but wonder, would Anderson do the same thing here? Would Anderson simply hand-wave away the twist? Would he avoid dealing with the consequences of changing nearly everything that The Lost War had to offer?

I can tell you that all of my fears and worries were unecessary, and that Anderson absolutely nails rolling into the twist, and dealing with all of the ramifications, in a beautiful, nuanced, and complex way.

You can, of course, expect everything that you loved in The Lost War. This is an action packed, DnD style adventure with a diverse cast of characters in a Scottish-inspired fantasy world. You can expect more dark creatures, battle sequences, plenty of magical powers, and more. If you were on board with The Lost War for these elements, just know that you will be eating GOOD with The Bitter Crown. Despite its length, this book absolutely flies by because everything just flies along as we dig deeper and deeper into the darkness that permeates this world.

I don't have much more to say about those elements that I already didn't say in my review of The Lost War, so what I want to focus on here is what I believe to be The Bitter Crown's biggest strengths - the character development.

Twists like those from The Lost War are often traumatic experiences, and Anderson deeply and deftly explores this trauma. What happens when your morals and ethics in your "fake" life directly contradcit your "real" life? What happens when you thought you were a monk, but you are really a warrior? What happens when the perosn you thought was the love of your life was "just" a friend? Is it ethical to pursue those feelings, and how do you build a relationship when you still have memories of a false reality? How do you pick up the pieces of a double life?

Anderson doesn't let his chaaracter off easy. Amidst the battles and action, his characters quietly contemplate their place in life. They meditate on who they were, are, and who they want to be. Defining one's personal idenetity is a difficult yet important process; we all seek to know who we "are" (and thus our cultural obsession with labels), but the characters in The Bitter Crown have to mediate between two sets of memories and identities. On one hand who they were in The Lost War was completely false, and on the other hand those experiences were in fact REAL. They lived those lives, fostered those relationships, and embodied those lives. Undoing a memory spell doesn't just undo those things. As much as they know the events of The Lost War (and many events prior) were fake, they still endured and experienced them.

Many readers have been celebrating the DnD style adventuring in The Bitter Crown, but I think the true magic of this book is what happens beneath the fantasy adventuring. It is not just that the twist in The Lost War introduced a new external to be thwarted. It is the internal struggle, the human struggle, of having your very identity brought into question that is the real marvel here.

The Lost War proved that Anderson is a master of building a plot, and The Bitter Crown, despite lacking a world changing twist, doesn't take the easy path either and moves in many story direections I wasn't expecting. What The Bitter Crown shows is Anderson's nuanced handling of complex character emotions. The humanity shines here over the fantasy, and The Bitter Crown is so much better for it.

Concluding Thoughts: A masterful follow up to The Lost War, The Bitter Crown doesn't shy away from the trauma of the previous book's world-shattering twist. Still full of DnD style adventures, dark magic, and exciting battles, Anderson also finds a lot of time to slow down and sit with the ramifications of what the characters have endured. This makes The Bitter Crown a deeper book, a more mature book, and an overall better book than its predecessor. The Lost War was famous for its big twist, but The Bitter Crown sets up this saga to be heralded as a masterwork of epic fantasy storytelling. Bring on the next book.

Justin Lee Anderson continues his tale of the kingdom of Eidyn, where mages are despised and hated for their abilities.. The Lost War (paper) showed a country beset with Zombies and demons created by mages and a deadly secret. The Bitter Crown (paper from Orbit). Sends the various heroes out to put down the demons and stop the Zombie curse, but their are no good solutions and our heroes have to make horrible choices. The next tale will complete the series. Very intense.

Just when I thought I'd figured out where this book was heading, wham! Something happens that threw all that out the window. I loved this book. I absolutely could not put it down.
Highly recommended for fans of DnD style adventures and Scottish inspired fantasy. For fans of the first book in the Eidyn trilogy, this book is an absolute must read.

I really enjoyed The Lost War, but the big twist at the end left me unsure what to expect of The Bitter Crown. And while I did enjoy it, I find myself less interested or engaged with some of the characters and relationships as I had before they got their memories back. Realizing a king and queen were in the adventurer's party hurt the group dynamic, and I struggled to enjoy Nirea's arc and interior as much once she went from pirate to queen. There were plenty of fun -- and tragic -- moments that kept me invested in the series, but I felt it was a step down from The Lost War.

thank you to netgalley for the advanced reading copy. I really enjoyed this and will be getting copies for my shop.

This book picked up right where the previous book left off. I felt a variety of emotions this time around. Some of them were bad and some of them were good. A lot of these emotions were involving the various characters and the decisions they were making.

In the first book, the characters were so interesting and they had their unique plot lines. These continued in this next instalment but they frustrated me more than anything. Throughout the book, some characters were making questionable and selfish decisions that made me go from really liking them to straight up hating them and wishing misfortune upon them. Some of the decisions they made had me in perpetual turmoil like the characters themselves and I would switch between rolling my eyes with annoyance, to siding with them, to scratching my head in uncertainty. There were also characters that had good intentions and just kept getting screwed over time and time again which was very frustrating.

We did have introductions to some new characters and expansions of characters that we briefly heard about in the first book that really added to the book and kept me engaged in the story. Some of the characters experienced awful trauma in the past that made some of their decisions more morally grey and made you sympathize with them; while some were just straight up evil. Either way, these characters added an interesting dynamic to the plot.

After the first book, the characters have a better understanding of what’s truly going on and start to see how high the stakes really are. There’s still a bit of a mystery vibe with characters trying to uncover who is helping the antagonists and who they can actually trust. I also wish the magic was explored more. It was something I was hoping for in the first book too but we still seem to only get a surface level understanding of the magic and it seems like there is so much more we could learn about it.

The book definitely made me feel things and I want to continue with the series to see how it’s wrapped up. I’m invested in knowing where these characters end up and hopefully they don’t make all these wrong decisions to get there. This could also be the intention from the author to make us feel very strongly about some characters. It’s unclear at this point but will become more of a final decision upon reading the next book. Fair warning, this book does end on a cliffhanger that’ll set up the next book with an intense start.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley and Orbit in exchange for an honest review.

You ever notice how sometimes good things happening to characters is a trap...used to hurt us later?

Spoilers for the Lost War, honestly do NOT get spoiled on it.

Thank you Orbit and Netgalley for a copy, it released today.

OK spoiler time

Justin Lee Anderson's "The Bitter Crown" continues from THAT ending with an even more difficult job. Their entire kingdom has had their memories replaced and their only tool to undo it works 1 person at a time. Now our cast must deal with the fallout of their overlapping memories, while dealing with this altered power dynamic. Oh and they found the Necromancer... Nothing bad can happen when you have to deal with one of them and they have had a, justifiable, rage.

Reasons to read:
-After the end of the first one how could you stop?
-The differences in the characters voices and thoughts now
-Conflict escalated
-The past of the Hellfire Club get delved into a bit
-Meet some Reivers who then get to ask what the hell is happening
-Big helping of characters trying to figure out what is the correct action and having to live with the consequences

Cons:
-Illegal cliffhanger

You know, usually I don’t care for zombies and there’s monsters that are basically zombies in this world. I usually don’t love grim dark and this is definitely grim and so very dark. But I’ve really been enjoying this series. Interesting characters, good world building, quick paced plot. This is a fun doorstop if you don’t mind the gore, For a grim dark doorstop of a book it’s a light read.

I didn't love this one as much as book one but it was still good! I love these characters and the world so I can't wait to see what happens in the next book. Justin Lee Anderson has made himself a spot on my auto read authors list.

What if the past few years of your life have been a giant lie, the woman you love, the king you serve, the friends you stand beside.....

As we enter into the second book of the Eidyn series we pick up where we left off with Aranok and the gang having discovered the truth about Mynagogg. Now begins the adventure to place the rightful king back on the thrown, cure the world of the blackening, and figure out how to end the memory curse.

Anderson's writing pacing was improved in this book, I felt like the first one dragged, but this is also common in many first fantasy novels as the world is built. The characters gained greater depth and their flaws and changes made them human.

Thank youb NetGalley and Orbit for the Arc