The Truth-Teller’s Tale is the second book in Sharon Shinn’s Safe-Keeper series. I enjoyed this one more then I did the first one, Shinn’s books are just comfortable to read. What they are not is particularly memorable. It’s Monday, I read this on Friday and most of the details are slipping out of my memory.
This book is set about 15 years after the events of the first one, and it can definitely be read as a stand alone novel. Adele and Eleda are twins growing up as innkeeper’s daughers in a larger town. Minor annoyance here, Shinn says they aren’t identical twins but rather mirror twins. Except that’s what an identical twin is, each twin is a mirror image of the other. Moving past that, when they’re twelve years old Adele and Eleda discover that they’re a Safe-Keeper and Truth-Teller respectively. Their different personalities are such that Adele keeps secrets and Eleda always tells the truth. And then the story is mostly about them growing up with their friend Roelynn, who is a wild boy-chaser. The story culminates in the stay of two strangers in their family’s inn and what happens there.
The story is told from the point of view of Eleda, the Truth-Teller twin, and her frustration with her secretive sister was amusing. Especially as Adele keeps her romance from her twin for most of the novel. The novel is full of people who are just nice and good, which is one of the reasons that Shinn’s books so appeal to me. Roelynn’s father, a very rich merchant, is the closest thing the novel has to a villain and even he isn’t The Worst-just extremely ambitious and a wee bit snobby.
These are easy books to slip into, and if you’re looking for a comfortable and cozy read as the weather gets colder, these are good place to look.
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