A review by paperbackstash
Watch Me Burn by Sharon Bayliss

5.0

“When you hurt someone, you always damage your own soul, and it doesn't feel good. A good person can feel it happening. A bad person doesn't notice until it's too late.”

The first book, Destruction, surprised me with it's intensity, dark twists, and unusual storyline. Watch Me Burn fortunately continued this trend - surprises around the corner readers don't see coming, multiple layers of good and bad in all the characters, the characters all united in a big bad but having their own lives and issues on the sideline.

David still stands as a weak type of man but a good character. Of course I can't really blame him being so overwhelmed, his life has gone crappy so fast. I wasn't as crazy about the mother/wife in the first but she's more enjoyable this time around - her character is more in the background perspective-wise, but the impact of her life greatly affects this book and series.

The kids are where it's really at, though. The dark and light in the brothers and sisters keeps rising up to where you're not sure what's going to be at the top in the end. Tragic characters facing hard odds is always fascinating, isn't it?

As before, I love the creative world the author weaves with winter and summer wizards, all falling on different spectrums of power based on when they're born. The war between the two is intriguing, as is the tendency of the families and wizards to corrupt. This one amps up the world by showing a strange blend of unusual talents. The writer weaves her spell well through well-placed words, just the right amount of scene and character shifting, and teasers of stuff to come. Thankfully dialogue has improved from last time.

You definitely need to read the first one before diving into this - both are excellent, and you'll be lost and not caring if you jump into this one without the backstory.

Not a huge cliffhanger, thankfully, but this story leaves you itching for more magic. I hope the writer dishes them out fast, as I can't wait to read more of this series. There's a huge wallop of human emotion mixed in with the witchcraft of this series.