By Amie Kealy
*potential spoilers for those who haven’t read it*
I picked this book up after watching a review that said it would be the next best thing you’d read, declaring that any fantasy lovers who liked brooding males would not be able to put this down. I could, in fact, put it down. Whilst I’ve read worse books this year so far, these two books were very hard to get through and felt painful at times to read. It’s also very hard to pin down the genre – it’s paranormal romance, meets Sci-Fi, meets fantasy which was quite refreshing because I normally don’t enjoy Sci-Fi so it was something abit different. As I was reading it, the tone and writing style was very reminiscent of the Bone Season by Samantha Shannon or Jennifer L Armentrout’s Luxe or Covenant series.
I have to say, the first book is very slow! With about 600 pages, it took at least half of that for the pace to pick up and the story to get more interesting. For those first 300 pages, not a lot happens. I understand that with fantasy books, the author needs to spend a fair portion of time world-building and introducing us to all the different characters but even then the world-building was a little confusing in places. The premise of the book is that Dianna sold her life away to Kaden, this novel’s villain, centuries ago in order to save her sister. Once mortal, now under Kaden’s rule, she becomes something other. Gifted with supernatural powers, Dianna is not quite a vampire, but must consume the blood of mortals to sustain herself and stay at optimal power. She can also shift into the skin of her victims, which makes it easy for to disguise herself. However, Dianna doesn’t submit to this role willingly, she loathes all the Kaden makes her do and rarely feeds from humans as a bid to keep the scraps of her mortal self. Her sister, Gabby, is the one thing that truly grounds Dianna and keeps her mortal soul. She becomes his renowned second hand, killing whoever threatens his power.
Samkiel is a god who is meant to watch over all worlds and be the guardian of the universe. Secluded away on the remains of his home world, destroyed thousands of years before the book begins, only the death of one of his personal guards, who resides on Dianna’s world, calls him forth to investigate. Long story short, Dianna and Samkiel, mortal enemies, then work together to find a rumoured relic from Samkiel’s home world – a relic that can supposedly kill Samkiel, an immortal who cannot be killed. Dianna works with Samkiel in exchange for a safe life for Gabby away from Kaden’s clutches.
I would say the enemy-lovers trope is done really well though! The fiery tension between Samkiel/ Liam and Dianna makes for such an intense read, simmering with tension and heated moments all book girlies die for. What this book did well was set up the next book – it was left on a cliff hanger with Dianna’s sister being killed, the person she’s spent her whole life trying to protect. Failing to protect her sister, causes Dianna to spiral and submit to her baser nature, abandoning Samkiel and becoming all she’s ever feared she was: a monster.
I think because of the nature of how the first book ends, it lends itself to a more action-packed, fast-paced second book. This book was over 700 pages and the first 400 really had me hooked – Dianna has turned off her emotions (think Vampire Diaries) and Samkiel tries anything and everything to bring her back to him. In her quest for revenge, Dianna goes on a killing spree, killing everyone involved or connected to the death of her sister, with Kaden’s death her ultimate end goal. However, this back and forth between Samkiel trying to appeal to Dianna’s good side and Dianna still being wrapped in her grief and rage, is overdone. It lasts for two thirds of the book, by which point I was just ready for the book to end. The last 80 pages were good because it finally breaks away from the tired pattern of trying to redeem Dianna and starts to build towards the actual evil the characters in the book need to destroy. However, because it only happens over the last hundred or so pages, it felt very rushed and more like an information dump then a well-thought overall story. I think if the author spent more time building on the events that take place at the end of the book, rather than the boring back and forth between Samkiel and Dianna, the book could have been a lot of more interesting to read.
These books had so much potential but ultimately fell short. 16,000 pages later and I don’t imagine I’ll be reading the third book in the series, even if I do kind of want to see how the series will end. It comes out in May so I guess I can decide then whether or not I fancy giving it a read.