It’s book 2, the sequel, to RuneScape Betrayal at Falador that takes place from the free online role-playing game of the same name.

Titan Books Official Description from the back cover of RuneScape: Return to Canifis:
“Varrock is the greatest human city in the world, yet it is a city filled with dangerous secrets. People have been disappearing, taken by an inhuman abductor. Its victims are murdered...or worse. For some are spirited away to Morytania, the land where vampires rule. As Kara-Meir and her friends – heroes of the Battle of Falador – gather for the Midsummer Festival, unrest grows against the crown. A conspiracy is unmasked, and the King is forced to send representatives across the holy river to Canifis, the capital of Morytania. For reasons of his own, he selects the now famous heroine Kara, as well as Gar'rth, unique in his knowledge of the land of the dead. They are accompanied by Theodore, Doric the dwarf, the wizard Castimir, and the barbarian priestess Arisha, on a mission that will force Gar'rth to confront his violent heritage, and will reveal secrets that will test their loyalties to the limit.

For the price of failure in Morytania is far worse than death, and if their mission fails then a new King will rule in Varrock. A King who is lord of both the living and the dead.” 

The Writing:
T.S. Church has a way that pulls you in the story that he is writing about. His characters are fun to read because as he is telling about them and what is going on around as it’s happening. Though what I enjoyed the most about his writing, especially when it came to his characters, is how he has given them their own moments during the story where it’s never just centered around one character in the group. Though there are more times that the story is being told from the point of view of Theodore, there are still enough from the other characters that keep the story moving along.

There is also times when T.S. Church will have his characters thinking about a moment in the story about what is going on or maybe just how they feel about one of their friends or another character in the story. It’s fun to read about the thoughts the character is having at the moment without it being done where it just says something like they are upset with how that has happened or that made her feel happy. Though there are moments like this, T.S. Church allows the reader to know what the character is thinking in words as if they were myself thinking them.

Though there are times in the writing that I found it was going slow. In fact by page 200 I was waiting for the real story to begin. Sure I was enjoying what I was reading, this is one thing that I’ve noticed with T.S. Church’s writing, he can drag out the story but still make it fun to read. However I still noticed that it was taking awhile for the main story to really start to kick it. With having all the characters separated at the beginning of the story and then slowly bringing them together the story dragged on. These first 200 pages I think could have been told in 100 instead and kept the story just as interesting.

At times through, there is more being wrote about how the characters where feeling/thinking at the moment then there is of the main point of the story is being told. I think that the book could have been a good 100-150 pages shorter where the characters developed faster as well as having the action and main plot point of the story moving along faster to get to the ending. Still though, the book is still a lot of fun to read, it’s easy to read, and there’s some great detail given to the land and characters that make everything rich, fleshed out, and real.
 

The Characters:
When I heard that T.S. Church was writing a sequel to his first RuneScape book I was actually excited about it. I had read the first book and I really liked it, there were characters that were fun to read, a plot that had a good amount of action, drama, and intrigue, and it was well written. So, with that all on my mind, I was looking forward to seeing how these characters from the first book have developed since I last read about them. In fact I was really hoping that they would still be in this new one and not just as minor supporting roles as they help out the new characters.

I wasn’t let down as far as having the same characters to get to read about in this sequel. All the characters from the first book of RuneScape are here in this one and they are about the same as before but not quite the same. Which is actually good because who wants the same characters again doing the same thing in a new book? I don’t, that would be old, stale, and boring to read about, but that does not happen here in this new story.

Here in RuneScape: Return to Canifis the characters have grown from since the first book. Squire Theodore has become an actual knight who has even stronger feelings for his order along with having them for Kara and a new character of Lady Anne. Theodore has become sure of himself in how he fights and uses his popularity from the battle that happened in the first book. He has also become a little self righteous and is still hard headed.

Kara has kind of stayed the same though but there are still enough differences in her character that has kept her sharp and fun to read. This goes for Doric, Castimir, and all the others. There’s also new characters such as King Roald, Lord Despaard, and Pia bring new life to this new story. Having new characters was needed in this story, otherwise it would have become bland to read. These new characters give the story the fresh breath that pushes along the story and allows the old characters to stay fun to read.
Though these new characters just don’t serve to make the old ones remain fun to read, they are good characters on their own. Though not much is done with King Roald or even with Lord Despaard and Pia, but when they are being wrote, they are fun to read. Each character has a believability to them that make me want to know more about them.

I wasn't really feeling the return of Sulla and Jerrod however. In every story there has to be an antagonist, someone that has to be the evil character that has to be fought otherwise the story will just be a long drawn out adventure with nothing happening and no way for the characters to grow. In the first it was Sulla and Jerrod that are the antagonist characters of the story and they were beat in the end. So I was thinking here in the second book there would be some new villains for these characters that I like to fight against that would push them even further past their limits but allowing them to accomplish what they thought was impossible. There is, that evil character is there, but so are Sulla and Jerrod, the same two from the first that I thought could have been left out of this story. They do play a part that has a impact on what is going on in the story but I think it could have still be done with the use of another set of new characters. And the new villains of the vampires was very interesting and fun to read, only problem is they are not in the story enough. There are the times when the characters talk about them and use the names of the other villains, only they don’t really show up until the end of the story. For me I was wanting to read more with them sooner.

It can be read if you haven’t read the first book?

The story develops without needing any real prior history from the first book to be able to follow along with the story plot. Here in this second one the characters are the same but there is enough back story given through the story that the reader will still understand. However, I would advise to read the first book because not only will it allow the reader to get an understanding of the characters but the characters have changed some since the first and it will be noticed with having read the first book. Though it’s simple enough to follow, this second book is better in my opinion because I had the full back-story from the first book.