First published in 2003
Thickness: 756 pages
Personal rating: 3 stars
Read in Dutch (Ketenvuur)
In short
After being gravely injured in battle, Richard awakes to discover Kahlan missing. To his disbelief, no one remembers the woman he is frantically trying to find. Worse, no one believes that she really exists, or that he was ever married. Alone as never before, he must find the woman he loves more than life itself....if she is even still alive. If she was ever even real. (www.goodreads.com)
My two cents
As with almost every Terry Goodkind novel they start out rather slowly, to entangle you within its firm grip once you get past the first 200 pages.
It was just the same with Chainfire, the ninth installment of the Sword of Truth series, which I've come to love.
Chainfire begins rather different from the other novels. Instead of something happening to the main characters from which they have to escape or find a way to defeat it, the world seems changed all over.
Richards beloved Kahlan isn't by his side anymore, and what makes it worse is that no ones seems to remember her. They don't recall Richard having a wife, or someone existing by that name.
Richard struggles to find prove for his so-called delusions, and even begins questioning his own sanity.
Chainfire doesn't deal much with the vast threat of the Imperial Order, it's more a story of Richard and the ones he loves. How life would have been if Kahlan hadn't been there. How other people would have behaved.
Terry Goodkinds novels are very well detailed and that may hold out on the tension a little bit in the beginning, but when the truth unravels you go on a rollercoaster of events and emotions.
I thought this was a decent installment, not the best but certainly not the worst either.
