We learn more of both characters as the series progresses, yet it is a slow chipping away rather than a large revelation, as each character has good reason to be cautious of giving away too Alec, though he suffers from ignorance of his own ancestry, is likewise hesitant to share more of himself early on, though that hesitance is borne largely of confusion and self-denial. Well, the latter does contribute, particularly in the first two books, for Seregil portrays one of my favorite character conventions: the spy, the thief, the rogue, perpetually situated on the outskirts while secretly immersed within the intrigue, he gives away little about himself out of necessity and reluctance. Alec and Seregil have skyrocketed to the top of my list of all-time favorite characters, yet even after three books there is still so much we don’t know about these two, and it’s not for lack of description or purposeful concealment. Lynn Flewelling achieves that rare feat of balancing complexity of worldbuilding with character development, yet she accomplishes the latter in a most intriguing way. It took approximately a page and a half for me to realize that the Nightrunner series would be my new series obsession. They are the books that I compare all others against, not in terms of quality per se, but in terms of emotional investment they set the bar. They haunted me for months afterward, and every few months I still flip through to revisit favorite chapters. I flew through these books at a feverish pace, desperate to find out what would happen to the characters that I’d grown to love yet unwilling to let them go when I’d finally turned the last page. Last year, I was lucky enough to happen upon this phenomenon twice, first with Karen Marie Moning’s Fever series, then with Anne Bishop’s Black Jewels Trilogy.

Every year I seem to stumble upon a series that seemed innocuous enough on the shelf, and I take that series home, unwittingly committing myself to a week in which all my waking thoughts will be consumed by this new world and its characters.

Luck in the shadows by lynn flewelling