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A review by bunnerz
Blood and Magick by Sarah Piper
3.0
This book was a clean conclusion to all the hanging plot threads, but it wasn't a very well-paced or satisfying read.
The book started with Elian's "death," but the angst was drawn out for over half the book when we all knew that he was going to come back due to their connections with Death.
Everything was resolved much too easily for the final battle. While the group did originally have difficulty trying to get the mountain fae to battle with them due to the gargoyle Hudson's past and their NIMBY attitude, it was a bit absurd for them to suddenly change their minds when the FMC Haley suddenly became super OP after unlocking her link with Midnight the realm. Melandra was built up to be this bad-ass goddess, but she was quite summarily defeated by Haley in a few pages with her new Mary Sue abilities, which was incredibly unsatisfying.
The prose was fine, but there were quite a few typos that showed a lack of editing. For example, "bain" was used instead of "bane," and "desert" was used instead of "dessert." Haley repeated quite a few times at the end how she felt that Midnight was her home, but she was enslaved and trapped in the castle IIRC... how would she have connected with the realm during her whole time there if she never interacted with any other residents at any point?
Overall, I could definitely tell this was a spin-off series due to the lack of context on her sisters and Death, but I am not interested in exploring more of the world based on this writing sample.
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Ratings - completed series:
#1 Blood and Midnight: ★★★★☆
#2 Blood and Malice: ★★★☆☆
#3 Blood and Madness: ★★★☆☆
#4 Blood and Magick (this book): ★★★☆☆
The book started with Elian's "death," but the angst was drawn out for over half the book when we all knew that he was going to come back due to their connections with Death.
Everything was resolved much too easily for the final battle. While the group did originally have difficulty trying to get the mountain fae to battle with them due to the gargoyle Hudson's past and their NIMBY attitude, it was a bit absurd for them to suddenly change their minds when the FMC Haley suddenly became super OP after unlocking her link with Midnight the realm. Melandra was built up to be this bad-ass goddess, but she was quite summarily defeated by Haley in a few pages with her new Mary Sue abilities, which was incredibly unsatisfying.
The prose was fine, but there were quite a few typos that showed a lack of editing. For example, "bain" was used instead of "bane," and "desert" was used instead of "dessert." Haley repeated quite a few times at the end how she felt that Midnight was her home, but she was enslaved and trapped in the castle IIRC... how would she have connected with the realm during her whole time there if she never interacted with any other residents at any point?
Overall, I could definitely tell this was a spin-off series due to the lack of context on her sisters and Death, but I am not interested in exploring more of the world based on this writing sample.
------
Ratings - completed series:
#1 Blood and Midnight: ★★★★☆
#2 Blood and Malice: ★★★☆☆
#3 Blood and Madness: ★★★☆☆
#4 Blood and Magick (this book): ★★★☆☆