Oath of Gold by Elizabeth MoonMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
I’d give this book 4.5 stars if I could.
This third book in the trilogy is a fantastic way to end it. We ended the last book with the downward spiral of Paks and her disappearance from her friends. In this book she finds herself back in Brewersbridge and to avoid seeing people she knows ends up hiding in The Grove. She is in a bad way both mentally and physically and Master Oakhollow takes her in and helps her.
When she is healed physically and as mentally as she’s going to get, she finds herself back on a similar path to that which she always dreamed of, but with a very different understanding of that path. Her experiences have changed the way she views herself and the world and it has made her a better character for it. She has been through hell and back and come out a stronger and more compassionate person.
Most of this book is taken up with Paks’ quest, set by the gods. Her strength of character and depth of belief is challenged on an ongoing basis and her previous alliances and friendships help her achieve her goals. I love that the ended of this book, isn’t really an ending. It’s more of a ‘this is how this story ends, but Paks carries on living her best life’.
The book is well written and the world in which Paks dwells is convincingly created. The only reason this whole series didn’t get 5 stars across the board is because Paks always stands a little apart from the world and doesn’t fully engage with people who become friends. There is always a distance. I know this is a decision the author made because Paks’ full purpose is to do the work of the gods, but I don’t think she needed to be quite as self-sufficient as she was. Her friendships were always transitory and she was always a bit of an island. However, if her friendships had meant more than her duty, this would have been a very different series of books, I just felt that there could have been a little bit more of a balance in experiencing human connections. Apart from that one quibble, I loved this book and the rest of the series as much as I remembered. Maybe I’ll dig out some more old paperbacks!
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