The Broken Kingdoms

It is 10 years after the events of The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms and we get to see how the concluding events of that book have changed life in the city of Sky, which is called Shadow by many of the characters we meet. This sequel has many of the features that I enjoyed in the first book. The narrator, Oree, is smart and funny, though not a perfect person, and I became fairly attached to her. There are gods and godlings interacting with people in complicated ways. N. K. Jemison makes each one distinct, both good and bad (whatever those terms mean for gods). There is an underlying mystery: Who is murdering gods? And why? And how? Oree gets swept up in this mystery seemingly by chance, but she gradually realizes that the events have a close connection to her own life and finding the solution becomes imperative for her own sake as well as for the city of Sky/Shadow.

This book primarily focuses on a new set of characters and the characters we met previously only make brief visits to this story. I think this book could be read without reading the first one since we get a recap of what happened in that story. However, the explanation is given from Oree's perspective. It is incomplete and even inaccurate in some ways, as Oree gradually learns . The meaning of many scenes is deeper if you have read the first book and know the characters and events from that story.