The Blood Mirror (Lightbringer Book 4)

The Blood Mirror was well crafted, well executed and continually surprising. If you've liked the Lightbringer series so far, this won't disappoint. But it feels like the first half of the conclusion of the series and not a volume to itself. Very enjoyable, but it raises a lot of questions without delivering as many answers. I expect the payoff will be big in the last volume, but it's not there yet.

Great continuation of the story, but feel this one was not quite as good as the last. Still a great read, but it left a little to be desired, I highly recommend it to anyone that's a fan of the series. (This reminds me of the feel that Beyond the Shadows.)

I am rounding up.

The world Weeks built has grabbed me and won't let go. The characters have one common quality. I believe them.

Five star characters in a five star world.

Down a half star for the strangeness of the plot twists in this one that are a little too jarring and feel unnecessary.

I really like this story and this author.

-bt

A good read, Brent Weeks delivers! Complicated magic system, shrouded in mystery, makes readers yearn for more on the history of this world as well as the plight of the characters. Several story lines provide equal parts epic entertainment. Overall great fantasy!

I first learned about Brent Weeks six years ago from a bagger at our local grocery store. The employee recommended the Night Angel Trilogy. I have been hooked ever since. The Blood Mirror continues with Weeks' unique blend of adventure, magic, characters and humor. On top of that, Brent seems like a great guy who really appreciates his fans. That's why I buy his books instead of renting them from the library; to support his family and writing lifestyle. The grocery store employee and I buy his books and love them. You should to! You won't be disappointed.

Unfortunately, this book was the worst in the series. I loved the other books but this one seems forced and somehow different, as if a different author wrote it. Brent has many of his characters suddenly acting uncharacteristically, I'm sure in an attempt to transform or grow, but it just doesn't work well. It's clear Brent isn't comfortable writing sex scenes and they are poorly done. A little too much thesaurus use, grandiose imagery, and preachy-ness made me lose interest in many sections and want to skip entire chapters. And the ending was abysmally bad. Sorry, Brent, I really do love your books, hopefully the next in the series returns to the spirit of the other books and you write more to your strengths.

So disappointed. Another good author gone to filler farm of R Jordan and G Martin. Pre orders this book, which I seldom do, because I liked previous ones. This one gets a lowly Meh. Still slogging my way through it, but not pulling the late night reads for this one as I did the other

The book comes up short in many areas (including length). While I loved the first three in the series, this one just seemed like a filler that didn't belong. By itself the book isn't too bad, just compared to the others it is lacking.

Pros:
Introduces a couple new interesting magical aspects (will/soul casting)
The writing style/prose is excellent.

Cons:
The book seemed much shorter, and ends rather abruptly. The ending just seems like any other chapter, no huge climax, no big twist, it just ends. The entire book just feels like a filler. Nothing really seems to happen. Sure there are some events, but it really doesn't seem like enough to warrant breaking this isn't two books.
The central conflict of the story is Kip and Tisis are having trouble in the bedroom. After a year, they have sex. The end.
The character development is not believable.
While they jump between a lot of characters, they only talk about the Color Prince (main antagonist up to this point) and Zymun for part of 1 chapter a piece.
There's an awkward one year time skip in the middle.
The big twist they tried to throw in doesn't really work with things that were introduced in Book 1 (don't want to give anything away here though).
They never even mention anything along the lines of a blood mirror! Maybe Weeks was trying to be symbolic between how Kip is mirroring his relatives, but the name just doesn't really make sense.

I could go on, but I think the point is made.

As enjoyable as the earlier parts of the Lightbringer series, however I was surprised at how slow the story developed in this book. It feels clear that the author has a grand plot in mind, so as a part of the bigger story this book is a good read, but on the other hand I expected more plots and twists in accordance with the earlier parts.

'The Blood Mirror' by Brent weeks is a cleverly titled euphemism of the main plot; Kip learns more about himself and grows as a character through long grueling chapters where he unsuccessfully and painfully tries to penetrate his wife's 'Jade Gate', which acts as a mirror to his own weaknesses and shortcomings as well as their struggling relationship. "Every truth holds a legend...", the truth being the painful reality of women like Tisis who suffer from vaginismus (tight/closed vaginas) and the legend being the journey of Kip learning how to handle and overcome this stumbling block to their marriage. Maybe this is a stretch, and maybe I missed the main point of the book...which is why my title, 'The Vaginismus', makes the main plot of the story much more evident. /satire

Jokes aside, I'll start by mentioning that I've read through (and loved) the Night Angel Trilogy, and the first three books of the Lightbringer series. All are great, action packed, and I was beginning to think that Brent Weeks was immune to a common case of whatever ($$$) makes authors push out fillers instead of cutting right to the plot (or just having weak middle books). Well, I suppose if Anthony Ryan can drop the ball on a series after such an incredible opening book with Blood Song, then no one is safe. This book is unfortunately proof that Brent Weeks in indeed not the 'Gavin Guile' of fantasy authors.

I'll write here about the good, the bad, some side notes, spoiler thoughts then conclusion. Spoilers will be warned before mentioned. Unfortunately, as I've just finished the book, the bad leaves a poor lasting taste that will make it outweigh the good.

The Good
-New details about the Order and their end goal
-New insights into black luxin and how it affects Gavin
-Finally learn why Book 1 was titled "Black Prism", if a little late.
-More confident Kip (by the end, at least)
-Minimal sections of Liv, the boring super-violet goddess backstabber
-Occasional bits of knowledge and plot secrets dropped, so I know more about luxin/characters/overall plot than before

The Bad
-It feels like 50% of Kips sections of the book are devoted to his sexual problems with his new wife. This books seems more sexual than any other book so far, meaning that (seemingly) more pages and words are dedicated to describing sex. I will talk more about Vaginismus in my side notes.
-The Plot didn't really move far. At the end of book 3, the White King is an advancing force leading to a future epic battle. That battle isn't in book 4.
-No epic significant battles. The previous books of the series have ended with large, grand epic battles viewed through multiple characters' perspectives that leaves the reader feeling a surge of adrenaline and joy as they near the end of the book. That, sprinkled with new plot secrets have made the endings of the first three books awesome, leaving the reader satisfied at the end but still wanting more. This is not the case with Blood Mirror.
-Little connecting the separate POVs. I felt like before, even when the viewpoints switched between characters, they were interesting enough and they connected with each other enough that it wasn't too frustrating. Like in the past when a section on Gavin's POV has ended, but the next chapter is about Kip's POV and you still get to see that character but in a different light. In Blood Mirror, the main POVs are almost entirely separated (I think Teia and Karris are the exception). You don't interact with Teia through Kip's POV, or Kip through Gavin's, or Gavin through Kip's, etc. The consequence is that when a chapter ends and you want to know more about that character, you have to wait 2-3 chapters and when you get there, your mind is focused on the plot of the last chapter's character.
-More new questions asked than old ones answered.
-Unrealistic character decisions (see more in spoilers section)

Side notes
-I don't really appreciate not knowing the significance or meaning of the title of a book after I've read it. I'm glad to finally know why book one was called Black Prism, but its years overdue. Even now, having finished the book, I have a slight idea why Weeks went with 'Blood Mirror', but I'm not entirely sure still.
-Far too much about vaginismus and Kip and his wife's sexual problems. I actually laughed out loud when the book ended on an interesting but comparatively dull note, immediately followed by an author's note on vaginismus. Like: "Thank God, they finally had sex, now its time to get on with their relationship and the story!". Nope, books over. Here's an author's note on vaginismus, the true underlying point of the whole novel. I laughed out loud because my Kindle said I was only 90% of the way through the book, so I thought that the author's note was somehow a mistake...so the ending took me by surprise; I was at 90% of the book because of like 50 more pages of notes, acknowledgement and glossary stuff. I was thinking that the major battle of Book 4 was just around the corner, but nope. While I understand that vaginismus is a real thing and that people dealing with it likely go through tough times, its odd for it to have such a strong presence so late in the story.
-Brent Weeks seems to be digging himself into what I call the "Eragon Hole", named after the awfully concluded Inheritance cycle. Maybe this has an actual name in literature, but I will quickly summarize it: The story's bad guy is super bad, super mysterious and super powerful and is hyped up the entire series, only to never be fully revealed or understood until the end. Then the main character ends up defeating the bad guy with some new unique ability. Lightbringer has two of these: White King and Grinwoody. These guys are both feared and powerful but we have no idea how or why. Murder Sharp seems to me to logically be the most dangerous person described thus far; he can kill literally anybody by stopping their heart without them being able to do anything about it, all while invisible and undetectable. Yet he fears Grinwoody. Why? I love it when authors describe the bad guy to be mysterious and powerful in the beginning...but I hate it when that turns into laziness and we never end up finding out why the bad guy is so tough until the very end, moments before the main character defeats them. This can be solved easily in this series by having the White King unleash hell on some grand battle that Chromeria thought they would win. Then we would realize, "Oh, that's why all the wights follow this guy. He's insanely powerful."
-If Teia has the master cloak, is invisible to all, and can stop people's hearts, you would think she would wonder herself (or ask the White) why she can't just waltz on into the White King's army unseen and give the guy a heart attack. I'm sure Week's has a good reason for this, but Teia never even thought about it or asked anyone so we can't know for sure. Why doesn't Murder Sharp do it?

Spoiler Thoughts
-Kip manages to draft/see Paryl and Chi. This was epic. It happens near the beginning of the book and we learn and hear nothing more about it until like the last page, and even then, it is just mentioned. I imagine this book would be much more exciting if Weeks would replace 90% of the vaginismus discussion between Kip and Tisis with Kip learning and discovering more about his newfound abilities. Seriously. You'd think it would be realistic for Kip to do something along the lines of: "Huh, I can draft paryl and chi. Maybe I should mention this to the others, maybe I should practice this more."
-So we learn that Real Gavin was never in the prisons and Dazen Gavin created the Dead Man reflection. And that Black luxin has altered Dazen Gavin's memory. So, when Andross says something along the lines of "I came down here to use you for my plan, since Zymun sucks, but now I see you've become insane.", the logical response would be for Gavin to say "Hold up, I just learned that black luxin has destroyed some of my memories, which is why I can't remember some important things. And I'm not talking to myself; I used black luxin and hexes to create a sentient reflection to torture whoever is in the prison. So apart from being starved, I'm not crazy!" If he had mentioned that to Andross or Grinwoody...come on.

Conclusion: It's okay. But just 'okay' really stands out badly in a series of excellent books. I barely give it okay because some of the sections are really well written and some of the plot points revealed are very interesting. Book 4 could have been trimmed down by a lot. It's a lot of filler and the grand plot doesn't move very far. I re-read the first three books in preparation for this release; in reading the first pages of Book 4, which are a summary of the first 3 books, I could understand the key points given, but I still felt glad to have re-read those books because their awesomeness just couldn't be summarized in a few pages. I love the characters and I'm too invested in the plot at this point not to buy the next book. However, I will likely not be re-reading Book 4 when that time comes, and I imagine Weeks will have a much easier time compressing this filler book into a small paragraph of plot points at the start of Book 5.

Really fantastic plot line. Brent Weeks is wonderfully talented at creating intense and surprising stories with plenty of interest and intrigue. I am a loyal fan of the series and can't wait for the fourth book.

“The Blood Mirror” is the fourth book in Brent Weeks “Lightbringer” series. In this episode, Gavin is trapped in a prison he built himself. He is stripped of all of his powers, he is broken, he is fighting insanity…..and he is not alone. Karris is mourning the loss of her husband while trying to fulfill her role as the “Iron White”, all the while watching her world fall down around her. Teia continues to grow in her abilities but is unfortunately little more than a slave to a group of dark, mysterious, and sinister masterminds. And Kip and his new wife Tisis are trying to lead “The Mighty” and the rest of his new army against the White King – all why dealing with their own very private issues.
Weeks’ new book does much in the character development aspects of the series, but does not advance the overall plot as much as some readers will be looking for. The pacing in this one is probably slightly slower than any of the previous books. There is very little “action” and instead, Weeks spent much more time exploring the characters themselves and their emotions, motives, and loyalties. It may be an issue for those who are looking for a quicker read, and particularly those who were hoping this would be the last book in the series. But for those who appreciate a more complete story, “Blood Mirror” will be rewarding in that Weeks uses this fourth installment to solidify the legacy of the overall series. One thing that I think all of the readers will appreciate is that this book answers more questions than it presents – and this is the first book in the series that does that. So many things are revealed in this one that it certainly gives the impression that this fourth book is the wind up before a fifth book that should be the conclusion.
As much as I hate waiting two years between book releases, the depth and quality of Weeks writing is undeniable and “The Blood Mirror” should be a satisfying continuation for the majority of the fans of the series.

I do have two issues with the book. First, I think that one of the most important measuring sticks for a fantasy author is in their ability to completely immerse the reader in the world they create. Brent Weeks does an admirable job of that most of the time. But there are instances where he inadvertently shocks you back into reality by using words or phrases that don’t belong in the story. For instance, Weeks uses several phrases throughout the series that are curses in this world he’s created such as “Orholam’s Balls”…….which is fine. It serves the purpose and makes sense in the context of the story. But then he follows that up with the usage of the F-bomb repeatedly as well. Another example is at one point in the story Kip is debating with his guys the reasoning behind the White Kings sudden change in strategy. In that conversation, one of them mentions “guerilla warfare” as a possible reason for the kings reluctance to advance. That’s a very American military term and would have no context in this story. So it’s little things like those that momentarily jar the reader out of Weeks fictional world and back to reality. These are minor gripes I know, but these are the kind of things that separate the great writers from the true masters. Weeks has the potential to be a master, but he needs to fix things like this to get there.
Secondly, the “issue” that Kip and Tisis struggle with throughout the book was fine by me. I actually thought it served to add some real life tension between their characters and gave Weeks the opportunity to paint their marriage with sympathy and a relatable struggle. My problem was that after the book, Weeks felt the need to justify his inclusion of this aspect of the story with a one page write up on how this is a real medical problem and if you or someone you know has experienced it that help is available. This was completely unnecessary, and almost laughably out of place. This should never have been included in the book and I hope that it’s deleted from future releases.

Overall, “The Blood Mirror” is a deep, well plotted, and thoughtful addition to a great series. Weeks is a terrific writer and this series continues to please. Well done.

Good god the plot twists were epic. Shame the book seemed too short, jumping between characters stories too much with not enough depth in each chapter. Despite this failing, overall the book carried the plot forward in an amazingly unexpected direction.

Good god the plot twists were epic. Shame the book seemed too short, jumping between characters stories too much with not enough depth in each chapter. Despite this failing, overall the book carried the plot forward in an amazingly unexpected direction.

Brent Weeks writes a good novel. This one is almost on par with its two predecessors. The only qualm, which is a small one, is that you can feel Weeks rushing a little as the story progresses. It was to be expected considering he decided to change from one to two books and wanted to hurry and get the first out to his fans. Quality was not sacrifised, just the pacing a bit. Still definately worth reading.

Definitely a turn away from the previous books and this book has a different feel. I was disappointed after having high expectations ( probably that's the reason for 3 stars instead of realistic 4) But I guess if you read first three books might as well read this one too. And now it's easy not to have high expectations for next book or even look forward to it.

Series is great. Books get better and better and he even catches me off guard in almost every book. I love this guy’s creative mind. He gives my mind a place to go when it lingers on ptsd memories. Thank you, Brent Weeks.

I have a few chapters left. The characters grow with each book. The long period between the books make you forget parts of the plot, but its stimalating reading nevertheless. You want to read more. What can you ask of a book? I find it good reading.

Without a doubt the best fantasy series in years. I've read them all - Hulick, Brett, etc. Nothing compares to this saga.
The world that has been created by the author is astonishing. Story sometimes juvenile, but in a positive sense. Somehow each part of the series, seems to be better than the previous one. The only problem is that the story is so good I've finished this book in 2 days...
Amazing piece of writing.

Overall this is an excellent series that I am really enjoying. This book though really just seemed to be filler without significantly moving forward major plot lines as much as I expected. Very much felt like going through the motions to turn out another book in the series. On the plus side Kip as a character starts to experience some growth.

I feel as though this book does little to further the plot. But it does, just at a slow pace.
If you liked the first three books chances are you'll still like this one. I read a lot of negative reviews but enjoyed the book despite being worried it might not be as good.

Suffers a bit from middle movie syndrome. Coming off the exciting end of what just happened in the previous book. This felt a little boring while it was setting up plots and character arcs for the endings. That being said I still enjoyed reading it and am excited to see how it wraps up.