The Complete Arrows Trilogy (Heralds of Valdemar)

The book is 300 pages of four (or six?) mini stories with shallow plot peaks one after another. That is, every time suspense builds up for a page or two it is immediately resolved by some obvious solution and the story moves on. The first story is about being stuck in a Handmaid's Tale situation. The second is about escaping this on a magical horse and traveling to the capital city to be trained with the magical horse. The third is about being bullied by other students. The fourth is about getting a child to behave. And the fifth is about getting revenge for a past, attempted coup by death sentence. Although not written as a collection of short stories, maybe it's better to imagine this like that.

The characters don't feel consistent to their character nor to their purported magical horse society belief system.

And the lack of actual speech in the book makes it feel like the entire book was a sloppily summarized email written directly to me by a friend.

Oh and throughout the book there are hints of frequent (explicitly not just heterosexual) sex going on. The students and magical horse people are as active as the magical horses are themselves. That said, nothing about this is gratuitous or dwelled upon. It's just something people (and horses) do.

Ultimately the book was an easy and entertaining read.