Summary from GoodReads:

It seems too good to be true. After centuries of bitter strife and fatal treachery, the seven powers dividing the land have decimated one another into an uneasy truce. Or so it appears….With the death of the monstrous King Joffrey, Cersei is ruling as regent in King’s Landing. Robb Stark’s demise has broken the back of the Northern rebels, and his siblings are scattered throughout the kingdom like seeds on barren soil. Few legitimate claims to the once desperately sought Iron Throne still exist—or they are held in hands too weak or too distant to wield them effectively. The war, which raged out of control for so long, has burned itself out. But as in the aftermath of any climactic struggle, it is not long before the survivors, outlaws, renegades, and carrion eaters start to gather, picking over the bones of the dead and fighting for the spoils of the soon-to-be dead. Now in the Seven Kingdoms, as the human crows assemble over a banquet of ashes, daring new plots and dangerous new alliances are formed, while surprising faces—some familiar, others only just appearing—are seen emerging from an ominous twilight of past struggles and chaos to take up the challenges ahead. It is a time when the wise and the ambitious, the deceitful and the strong will acquire the skills, the power, and the magic to survive the stark and terrible times that lie before them. It is a time for nobles and commoners, soldiers and sorcerers, assassins and sages to come together and stake their fortunes…and their lives. For at a feast for crows, many are the guests—but only a few are the survivors.

My Review:

It’s difficult to write a review of A Feast for Crows because of one drastic thing – the empty promise at the end of the book. I read this book several years ago and hung my hopes on that promise, that in a year A Dance with Dragons would be released – and it was just released this year. So when I reach the end of A Feast for Crows, it reminds me of the agony of waiting (although I certainly filled my time with other books). This fourth installment of A Song of Ice and Fire is interesting and infuriating. It only deals with certain characters and leaves others out. I long for updates of Jon, Dany, Tyrion and one other – but get very, very few bits of information on them. Rather, we’re stuck with the “King’s Landing” version of events. Granted, those events are thrilling. Between the struggle of the Queens (Margaery and Cercei), the search of Brienne “A highborn maid of three-and-ten, with a fair face and auburn hair?”, the fumbling heroics of Samwell (finally, the boy shows his backbone… of sorts), the re-emergence of Asha (I love that chick) and.. Sansa, now Alayne and Arya, now Cat. So. much. information. And I feel like I’m just being set up for something huge and the bigger it gets the more I fear for it to fail and for me to come away feeling disappointed. I know that Martin has cautioned us to not get too attached to characters – but I got attached to Brienne, dangit (And she and Jaime better.. you know!), I even enjoyed Cercei’s own spectacular brand of wickedness. But now, religion is playing even more prominently into the political mess. The emergence of a new “Holy Guard” to battle against Stannis’ “Red Woman” brings a whole new level of tension to the stories and one that, I hope, A Dance with Dragons will shed a little more light on.

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