The blurbs below may contain spoilers for each series. They often have deeper world-building, character development, plot twists, and lots of irony. Jemisin 4.35 119,495 Ratings 11,114 Reviews published 2017 12 editions This is the way the world ends. These second books expand on the first and up the ante in ways that only series can do. 142,139 Ratings 11,039 Reviews published 2016 72 editions THE SEASON OF ENDINGS GROWS DARKER AS CIVILIZATION Want to Read Rate it: Book 3 The Stone Sky by N.K. Reading exposition and remembering details really start to pay off by book two, especially if the first book ends on a cliffhanger. I read a lot of SFF, especially lately, and these books often have complex world-building. Second books don’t usually drag for me because I’m acclimated to the authors’ styles and know the characters. I read the ends of series and books more quickly and easily than their beginnings. If I decide to continue past the first book of a series, though, I often prefer the second. I start many series without continuing them. Lewis re-ordered his Chronicles of Narnia, but most people agree that the first book published, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, is the best place to start the series. Like many other The Lord of the Rings fans, I prefer The Fellowship of the Ring and The Return of the King to the second installment, The Two Towers, in both the books and the movies.

Second books in series get a bad reputation, often unfairly. Evangeline has always trusted her heart, but this time she’s not sure she can. Unrelated to the novels, just in the same universe.When a murderous curse is revealed, Evangeline Fox and Jacks will have to do battle with old friends, new foes, and a magic that plays with heads and hearts. “Stone Hunger,” a novelette set in the Stillness. She’ll break it herself, if she must, to save her daughter. Essun does not care if the world falls apart around her. Without sunlight, clean water, or arable land, and with limited stockpiles of supplies, there will be war all across the Stillness: a battle royale of nations not for power or territory, but simply for the basic resources necessary to get through the long dark night. Now Essun must pursue the wreckage of her family through a deadly, dying land. And worst of all, across the heart of the vast continent known as the Stillness, a great red rift has been torn into the heart of the earth, spewing ash enough to darken the sky for years. Meanwhile, mighty Sanze - the world-spanning empire whose innovations have been civilization’s bedrock for a thousand years - collapses as most of its citizens are murdered to serve a madman’s vengeance. Essun, a woman living an ordinary life in a small town, comes home to find that her husband has brutally murdered their son and kidnapped their daughter. Three terrible things happen in a single day.

The fifth season book 2