Reviewed by Silvara on
I received this book for free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
This series just keeps getting better and better. Nell is still finding clues and putting things together in ways her team hasn't. But they found a lot of things on their own as well. And it fits better in this book, the way she puts things together. It didn't feel nearly as Mary Sue-ish this time around. She's now getting schooling to become a full member of the team, and her powers keep growing and changing in interesting ways.
Tandy's powers also got a temporary boost and twist during the book. And he is a lot more sure of himself, while staying true to the character we got to know in the first book.
Occam is still one of my favorite characters, and my wish from the first book certainly seems to be heading in the right direction! His relationship with Nell is both sweet and funny. He's protective, but without falling into the "my word is law" area. And Nell is finally starting to realize that she might see him as more than a friend or a team member. But it's a super slow burn kind of romance, and isn't anything like a central thread.
We get to see a lot more about how T. Laine's powers work, and how witchcraft in general works in this world. Jojo also has a bigger part, and while Rick doesn't disappear, he is much more of a background character in a lot of ways. I liked that we learned more about the magic that keeps him in human form, and the twist about that completely took me by surprise!
The amount of depth given to the world and how magic works is pretty amazing. It didn't really register at the time of reading, as it sucked me in so deep I just had to keep going until I'd finished the book. But thinking back to it now, there's a lot of science behind everything, just as much as the magic and government bits. It has the feeling of every possible thing that may ever come up in any of the books, or may need to be used at any point, has been written down and squirreled away in a notebook somewhere. You can just tell that the author has done a lot of research, and has years worth of notes on anything and everything.
I can hardly wait to get my hands on the next book. And this is definitely a series I will be re-reading for years, and will be buying for my niece once she's a bit older as well. If you haven't read this series yet, you need to go do so!
This review was originally posted on Fantasy of the Silver Dragon
Reading updates
- Started reading
- 12 October, 2016: Finished reading
- 12 October, 2016: Reviewed