The Sowing (The Torch Keeper #2) | Steven dos Santos | Review
**This review contains spoilers for book one - click here to read my review of The Culling.
After reading and reviewing The Culling (book one in The Torch Keeper series) last year I was eager to find out how the story would progress in the sequel. Luckily for fans of the first book The Sowing takes an interesting direction and does not disappoint, bringing just as much in the way of twists, turns and gore.
In The Sowing we are thrown right back into the action, with Lucian ‘Lucky’ Spark having won his Trials. Although now training with the Establishment, by night our memorable main character Lucky is also part of the rebellion. Still of course trying to do everything he can to protect little brother Cole, things take a turn for the worse when an assassination attempt by the rebellion doesn’t go according to plan. The fall out leaves Lucky and his fellow Establishment trainees with the devastating news that they will be sent back into the Trials, this time as Incentives.
Having earlier mentioned the action and gore, my favourite parts of this instalment were actually the world and character building elements. In the first book we are introduced to Lucky and the world around him including the Establishment, run by those responsible for putting him and the other recruits through the horrors of the Trials. However in The Sowing we are treated to various interesting snippets of information explaining more about how the society came to be this way as well as some real revelations about the Establishment. The balance in book two seemed to work very well as the first two parts of the novel were action-packed with the third providing more of an insight into the world of The Torch Keeper.
The story ended on a strong and intriguing note that makes picking up the third instalment next year all the more appealing, despite the fact that this is not my favourite YA dystopian (there’s A LOT of competition in this genre!). Having said that I do believe that The Torch Keeper series is rather underrated, especially amongst this community where I personally haven’t heard that many bloggers talk about it. If you like your dystopian tales dark with plenty of gore this may be the series for you!
Review copy c/o Netgalley, image via Goodreads
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