Warsworn - Elizabeth Vaughan

Lara is the Warprize

A powerful healer, she has sworn an oath of loyalty to Keir the Warlord, and his people. Now the Warlord and his chosen mate face enemies within the tribe and danger lurks on every hand as they journey toward Keir's homeland.

When they reach a village marked with the warnings of the plague, Keir forbids Lara to heal the sick, commanding that she not risk her own life. But both Lara and Kier are strong of will and neither will bend easily, even for love; and when Lara disobeys, she pays the price: both she and Kier are plague-struck... and so is their entire encampment.

In the midst of the dying, Iften, a rival warrior, gathers his followers and challenges Keir for the right to rule their tribe. If Keir, weakened by the sickness, loses -- he dies.

And so does Lara.

To save her love, her life, and her adopted people, Lara must find a cure for the plague -- and fully embrace her sworn role as Warprize to her Warlord.


Book 2 of the Warland Chronicles Warsworn continues exactly where Warprize left off. Lara decides to follow Keir and his army to the plains. On their journey they find a village closed to them, Lara discovers they are suffering from the plague and goes in to help them. She finds most of the villagers dead and on returning to Keir's camp the disease spreads among them.

Lara and Keir spend part of this book separated, that is not necessarily a bad thing but it seemed to me that too much time was spent on the disease and trying to find a cure. Lara ends up sacrificing friends and almost sacrificing herself for the sake of healing others. That didn't add much to Keir and Lara's relationship nor make them better know each other. In fact I liked Keir better than Lara in this book, he seems more honest about his feelings and more tender with her than the other way around.

There are a lot of secondary characters that we get to know better in this book and that don't have a happy ending. All of the above make this is a more emotional read than the first book, there's more death, heartache and war. In a way I felt this book was just something we had to read before getting to the final, better, part. It creates a series of conflicts and challenges that will have to be addressed later.

Grade: B