Wrath of the Warlock (Swordsong Series Book 2)

5 Star Review

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Editorial Book Review:

By Samantha Borcy

Brent Batla has spent decades at the role-playing table, and Wrath of the Warlock is what that kind of imagination produces when it finally gets a second novel to stretch into. Where Rise of the Blademaster gave us the war and the heroes who won it, this second book turns its full attention to what victory costs, specifically what it costs Jexi Aerimiril, the realm’s first warlock, whose power was never entirely her own and whose past was never entirely known.

Jexi is exactly the kind of protagonist that the best second-series books build their momentum around: complicated, dangerous, carrying history that has not yet fully arrived. The daughter of two worlds, bearer of powers no mortal was designed to hold, she steps out of the war’s aftermath and directly into the darkness beneath the Dark Elf kingdom with the particular determination of someone who suspects the answer to her questions will not be easy to survive. The tension in that premise, between the search for family and the waking of something terrifying in her own blood, is handled with real skill. Batla does not resolve the ambiguity cheaply. Jexi’s choice between atonement and wrath is earned rather than predetermined.

What continues to distinguish the Swordsong Series from the enormous field of epic fantasy is the world-building density Batla has clearly been developing across years of tabletop storytelling. The Dark Elf kingdom, the forbidden magic, the demon bargains, the sense that powers older than the gods are operating beneath the events on the surface: none of this feels constructed specifically for this plot. It feels like a world that exists independently and is allowing the story to happen within it.

For readers who completed Rise of the Blademaster and have been waiting to find out what Jexi’s power really means and where it comes from, this book delivers those answers with the kind of stakes that justify waiting for them. A fully satisfying conclusion to a series that deserved two novels to tell its story properly.

About the Author

Brent Batla

Brent Batla was born in Houston, TX. He is a Graduate of Oklahoma State University and the National Fire Academies' Executive Fire officer Program. He is a Fire Chief in the Austin, Texas area. Mr. Batla and his wife, Jessica have two "very spoiled" fur babies. He has multiple trade article and academic contributions to fire service literature. Rise of the Blademaster is Mr. Batla's first novel.