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A review by lezreadalot
The Convent of the Pure by Sara M. Harvey
3.0
They had a certain passion that only came from fighting for something dearly loved.
This was a bumpy one. Lots of potential, and even though I had a fair few complaints, I'm still coming out of it with mostly positive feelings? Because I just can't help but love stories that deal with angels and angel lore and wings. I don't read a lot of it, so it's like forgotten catnip to me. It just activates something in my brain.
Portia is a demon-hunter, trained in a convent dedicated to the craft. Years ago, her lover Imogen died in a hunt gone wrong, and now Imogen's ghost accompanies Portia as much as she can. There are secrets coming to life about Portia's past that throws them into a power struggle with opposing forces. My biggest complaint about the book is that Portia is a secondary character in her own story. Things just keep happening to her; she rarely initiates any action. The book is just her reacting to a bunch of things people do, finding out information that's been hidden from her. Except she doesn't even find out that much; most of it is just revealed to her. It's a very passive book, and that was not super compelling to read. There's actually a lot of action and fight scenes, but something about the way those were written made them seem perfunctory and bland. The way information and lore was revealed often made me think that I was reading a second book in a series; the way some things were discussed and the way some characters were spoken of, it felt like the reader was supposed to know who they were. It was confusing and irritating by turns.
And yet... I still mostly liked this! IDK man, I just really like angels, lol. I enjoyed the lore and the worldbuilding, and there were a couple really exciting moments. I really liked how different prayers and saints were invoked, but this never got very religious, which I was glad for. (I like angels, but ironically I'm super ambivalent about religion. Whatever. I'm large, contain multitudes, etc.) This is mostly focused on Portia, but her relationship with Imogen played an important role, which I was super happy about. They were sweet together.
(There were apparently supposed to be illustrations throughout, but all the images were broken in my ebook copy, unfortunately.)
This ended on a cliff-hanger, but not a particularly frustrating one. (It helps that the first chapter of the next book is included, so you get some answers immediately.) IDK if I'll continue with the series, but I might! It was intriguing enough for me to want to give it a try.
Content warnings: