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mariaschneider's review
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
2.75
So this is decent urban fantasy, but the magic isn't well defined--meaning that while it's described, there's no way to tell what the limits are or how it's formed, who is born to it or not. We see the main training with an important spell, beats himself up learning it (because of mistakes) and then the spell doesn't even work. Worse, he doesn't seem to learn from the danger he is facing. He "forgets" to turn his sight on when faced with potential danger, giving a leg up to the attackers. Uhm...not realistic. This happened a couple of times. The attackers seem to strike mostly at random, so the book is moving along due to attacks, not actual plot. He isn't actively investigating. The book moves from one action scene to another with some really nice characters, but ofttimes important information is dropped without any backup info. One important clue (so and so betrayed us) is delivered without any proof or reasoning behind the information. Just dropped there because a bunch of zombies show up, but I sure as heck didn't get the connection between the guy who buried stuff in a church (that seemed to be doing okay keeping it safe) and the zombies that showed up and just what he did that was betrayal. This was completely left out and that was the case when reading a lot of other plot points. The book is tightly written, pretty good characterization and interesting details . But the magical worldbuilding is pretty much absent and the main doesn't seem to learn from his mistakes. He wastes time before he looks for danger, wastes time before he puts his shield up and is pretty much stuck on those one or two things-even though he knows the danger is out there, he's slow to bother to try and up his game. The fae and their powers are not well defined. They use an object from the church to build some kind of fairy jar--but don't explain what it was doing there, how it relates to the guy who supposedly betrayed them, etc. Just random info that could have been interesting, but meant nothing.
If you like action, this book definitely moves along. It's graphically violent, there's some cursing, although that isn't overdone.
If you like action, this book definitely moves along. It's graphically violent, there's some cursing, although that isn't overdone.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence
SPOILER - while there is graphic violence, the worst is when the main concocts a spell that ends up exploding pigeons. This was not done to protect anyone; it was essentially a joke on a wedding party as sort of revenge. This did not forward the plot and was randomly inserted into the storyline. This was too much for me, thus the graphic violence warning.