2022 book 144

 Rachel Neumeier’s Keraunani

This is another sort of side quest book, focusing on gruff soldier Esau, who was sent off on a mission in book three. And here is the story of that mission—finding a pregnant woman and marrying her, which should be simple but immediately goes off the rails—interspersed with flashbacks to Lalani's early days with the troops and some other missions Esau did. This has a lot of cute and funny parts to balance out the violence and action, though I was kind of over the flashbacks at a certain point. I loved how this one wrapped up. A-.