The Raven and the Crow: The Gray Throne

We rejoin Falciani's fantasy world in the second installment of The Raven and The Crow series, The Gray Throne. Even though Falciani excelled at building his world in the first book, he continues with lyrical world building with immense imagery, viewed through the eyes of each character leading to the same place but multiple reactions and responses.
With multiple POV switches, we follow each player in the book like a well structured chess game, yet Falciani is still able to surprise the reader with twists and betrayals that you just don't see coming. There are some plot lines left unanswered or without a satisfying end, which I assume will be finished in book three. However I will not be continuing the series nor will I be championing Falciani as an author moving forward. 
Falciani originally contacted me at the tail end of 2024 to review the first book ‘Dark Storm Rising' which I did here I originally fell in love with this book, and it was set to be my book of the year, even though I read it in the early days of January. However, just like Icarus flying too close to the sun, Falciani is about to get burnt. 
Imagine my surprise when reading this book and I stumbled across an outdated, ableist slur being used against a character with partial blindness, deafness and a facial scar. The R-word, used multiple times in the book, was removed from official federation and health providers in the 2010's due to its offensive meaning. Using Slurs/hate speech in a fantasy book of all things is pure laziness. 
Having the audacity to use slurs in your writing and publish it like it's not an issue shows us that you are comfortable using these words in your day to day vocabulary. 
You are choosing to make disabled folk your punching bag. 
You are choosing to alienate disabled folk from your community. 
You are showing that you don't care for or don't think of the disabled community.
You are showing that you think being disabled is something to be ashamed of.
But don't just take it from me:
“What's wrong with “retard”? I can only tell you what it means to me and people like me when we hear it. It means that the rest of you are excluding us from your group. We are something that is not like you and something that none of you would ever want to be. We are something outside the “in” group. We are someone that is not your kind. I want you to know that it hurts to be left out here, alone.”
– John Franklin Stephens, Special Olympics Virginia athlete and Global Messenger
“The word retard is considered hate speech because it offends people with intellectual and developmental disabilities as well as the people that care for and support them. It alienates and excludes them. It also emphasizes the negative stereotypes surrounding people with intellectual and developmental disabilities; the common belief that people with intellectual and developmental disabilities should be segregated, hidden away from society, which, in my opinion, is really old fashioned.”
– Karleigh Jones, Special Olympics New Zealand athlete
“I don't think you understand how much you hurt others when you hate. And maybe you don't realize that you hate. But that's what it is; your pre-emptive dismissal of them [people with intellectual disabilities], your dehumanization of them, your mockery of them, it's nothing but another form of hate. It's more hateful than racism, more hateful than sexism, more hateful than anything.”
– Soeren Palumbo, student, advocate, brother to a sister with an intellectual disability.