A Shadow Crown

Blair disappoints in her disjointed second Halfling Saga fantasy, which picks up where A Broken Blade left off. Though Halfling Keera Kingsown is still bound to her duty as the King’s Blade, she has joined the resistance movement to overthrow callous King Aemon, her adopted father, and works with her new companions in Faelinth to devise war plans—but a mole leaks information to the enemy. As they juggle preparing for war with rooting out the traitor, Keera also struggles to learn more about her own family history. Meanwhile, the rebels discover High Lord of the Harvest Curringham’s unlawful plot to hoard an exotic fruit called winvra and smuggle Halflings out of Elverath. Sinister enough on its own, this scheme serves as a front for far more sophisticated treason. Myriad subplots drag the pace­ and are jarring to toggle between; even worse, the threads fail to tie together into a coherent whole. All but the most devoted series fans will be underwhelmed. (May)