I really admire the worldbuilding in these novellas; I just wish I got on as well with the characters. Don't get me wrong - I enjoyed this book, and I enjoyed it more than the first one in the series. I find Mokoya's grief compelling, terrible as that sounds, and I was pleased to see her begin to dig herself out of it.

I was not pleased - although I was distinctly unsurprised - that a town in this world has been razed to the ground by the Protectorate, along with everyone in it. Akeha's refusal to stop his horrible mother in the last book has led directly to this massacre, and honestly, he bears some responsibility for it. Not that this is explored at all, and fairness where it's due, Red Threads sticks the landing a little more than its predecessor. Not quite, however, at least for me, because the same issue is arising again. A spoilt, shortsighted princess Frankensteins the soul of her dying mother onto a naga, which promptly starts destroying another town. There's people dead in the streets, but the princess is so relieved when she finds that Mokoya has survived a previous encounter with her. "I'm not a criminal!" she cries, in absolute relief, to which I say a great fat fuck off, madam, people are dead because of your choices. Yes, the princess is young and grieving terribly, and yes, she had a lot of help and she wasn't really the primary mover, but she has a responsibility for the consequences of her actions, and again... it's crickets there, I'm afraid. I think there's a solid moral philosophy underlining these narrative choices, but as with the last book I have little sympathy for it. That, I think, is colouring my response to what is really a very finely written body of work.