I swear that every time I finish one of my Robin Hobb reads/re-reads I’m convinced that book is my favourite in the series. So, while I fully expect the same when I get into book three of the Tawny Man trilogy, right now I don’t know how The Golden Fool can possibly be surpassed.

 

Having spent most of book one in self-imposed exile and then on the quest to retrieve Prince Dutiful, for book two Fitz is back in Buckkeep and trying to find a place for himself in his childhood home where his true identity is a deadly secret.

 

Fitz and the Fool have grown up and their interactions feel much more mature. Certainly the Fool is rightfully much less forgiving of Fitz’s assumptions and misunderstandings than he was when Fitz was a child. And, when the Fool’s connection to the Liveship Traders books is revealed to Fitz there is a heartbreaking and so powerful interaction between them as Fool reacts to Fitz’s boorish insistence that his childhood friend define his identity in a way that meets Fitz’s narrow experience.

 

“You know more of the whole of me than any other person who breathes, yet you persist in insisting that all of that cannot be me. What would you have me cut off and leave behind? And why must I truncate myself in order to please you?”

 

Another fantastic book on this series. I love these characters and can’t wait to read more, even though I know from Fool’s prophecies that the next book is going to have some sad moments.