Confessor

The Series

Confessor - cover image

I’ve long been a fan of the Sword of Truth Series, written by Terry Goodkind. I first started on the first book close to ten years ago, and have been eager to get hold of each successive book since.

What a series: it has stretched on for eleven installments, this being the final one. That may be somewhat unusual for the fantasy genre – I wouldn’t know, I’ve been too busy with this series!

There is an overview of books of the series on the author’s website: link.

I was really taken by Richard, the main character. He’s quite a character. There are numerous others, including Kahlan, Zedd, and so on. But Richard has been the main protagonist through the series.

Confessor

Richard is usually the main focus of the books. However, in Confessor and the two preceding books, Chainfire and Phantom, have been based more around Kahlan. She was captured by several sisters of the dark, and made to do their bidding and to travel with them. Until they all get into further trouble…Confessor is about the end of that time, with Kahlan getting away from her captors and being reunited with Richard. Much more happens than that, but that is the book in a nutshell. There were surprises along the way, most from Richard, as usual.

Without giving too much away, the book comes to a clean ending, an actual ending, and wraps up the series fairly well. Although I am left wondering what will happen of the characters now…

Criticism

The book is overall rather good. Although there were some issues along the way. There are some chapters that go on for many pages, mostly of conversation and background. I actually flipped through a few pages to get back to the action.

Some parts of the book were a bit confusing, as I was not sure what was happenbing, or what the relevance was. I sometimes had to re-read previous chapters to make connections.

Also, there are references to past books, which will not be very useful if you have not read those. So if you are getting into the series, you’ll need to go back to the beginning and read up to this one – should take quite a while!

Conclusion

There are some little issues with this book, but I feel none that will seriously impair it’s value. It has a suitable (if not typical) ending: the good guys win, bad guys lose, and everyone else lives happily ever after. And some overall plotlines are drawn together to bring the series to a close.

It may just be my anticipation to finish the series, but I was so drawn in to the book that I read it in the length of a weekend. I bought it on a Saturday, and finished it on the following Monday!

If you have been reading the series up until now, you owe it to yourself to finish it off. And if you haven’t read any of the books, you should start with book one, working your way forward. There are numerous references along the way to the previous books, and you really need to read them all to get the whole picture.

Now then, I think I’m going to have some serious re-reading ahead of me!