Sniper

Soldiers and Swords, Book 2

By: Margaret Couplet

Narrated by: Dan Levy

Corporal Clark Jameson, now Second Lieutenant Clark Jameson, had never dared to dream of a world where he belonged to a sword squad let alone become the wielder at the center of one, but here he was. He still has a long way to go; a week locked up in a dorm room wasn’t exactly the best way to get to know your new squadmates, and he’s never set foot outside of the empire before. Then there’s the matter of Harry and the secrets that Clark’s new squad seems to be keeping about Linsgarum’s mysterious former wielder.

Adam Milson had been born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He was aware of that fact, but sometimes a silver spoon wasn’t enough when your father was going insane and your brother was dead. A new relationship wasn’t exactly a fix for those things, but having Clark in his corner was certainly enough to help him tread water. Here’s hoping Clark wouldn’t react negatively to Harry’s secret. Both of Harry’s secrets, since he was the only one who knew the second now that General Browning was dead.

©2023 Margaret Couplet (P)2025 Margaret Couplet

DNF - Mary Jane self-insert (spoilers)

The world build is interesting, so I've been along for the ride cause of that. Most of the characters are cute, too.

However. That secret reveal [spoilers ahead]:

I'm getting strong Mary Jane self-insert vibes from Harry. She's the coolest, hottest, bestest warrior, (but also, look how quirky!) chosen one who immediately gets sexualized by her queer male cohorts as soon as her badassery is apparent.

Harry's already had the face reveal before her gender reveal, and we already know that Clark and Adam (both of whom, let me reiterate, are queer men) already find her beautiful and have emotionally intimate connections with her. The only thing that changes during the grand gender reveal is the knowledge that she's a woman, but then all of a sudden she's the object of desire and we're hearing about how hot she'd look in high heels and a red dress? Beg pardon, what??

Nah, I'm done. Bi/pan throuples are awesome (not there yet, but come on, it's obvious what's happening), but the way that reveal was handled made me roll my eyes and took me out of the story.

💯 on the PLOT TWIST …

I love this series. Ad is my favorite character so far but what I love more is the fact that I would have never guessed the outcome of Harry’s plot twist and character development!!!

Nothing

There’s just no story. The characters’ unit is on deployment and that’s the start and end of it. It’s less horny than the last book and there’s less fighting, and we have very little context for the fighting that does happen. But maybe it will be revealed in the next book? No thank-you. We don’t even get any additional interaction from the sword who is supposed to be alive. This isn’t a book, this is the worst filler volume of a light novel serial or graphic novel. Screams, “I had to meet the word count but didn’t know what to write”