A review by rinku
Der dunkelste aller Zauber by Margaret Rogerson

adventurous emotional mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

The ideas and concepts behind Sorcery of Thorns were so interesting and the beginning was so intriguing but sadly towards the end, the book was lacking some things so that I could only give 3.5 stars. 

Like I’ve said, I really enjoyed the main idea. Elisabeth is an apprentice at a library with Grimoires, living books that are sometimes friendly, sometimes straight up evil. After being accused of a murder she didn’t commit, Elisabeth is brought into the capital by the magician Nathaniel and his demon companion Silas. There, she learns that she’s part of a bigger conspiracy that threatens the fate of her world.  

It was so sad to see how Elisabeth not only had to adjust to this new situation but how judgmental all the people were towards her. Here, I liked how Rogerson integrated modern concepts, like paparazzi, into a medieval setting. There were other interesting concepts introduced, like different dimensions. I feel like many of those idea had so much potential but not all of this potential was used. Other things I quite enjoyed were the action scenes. 

In contrast, some moments of the story were quite predictable, like
Ashcroft being the (stereotypical) villain. Until the end, I was still not sure what his motivations were
. Also, we had the typical dancing ball. Some moments didn’t make too much sense for me, like how at the beginning, Finch doesn’t believe her even though you can clearly see that Elisabeth was in a battle. This was probably because
he just wanted to get rid of Elisabeth
, but there could’ve been maybe a better explanation why Elisabeth had to leave. 

All in all, the pacing of the story was quite good but towards the end, it became a bit slow because some miscommunications happened which was annoying. Compared to this, I found it clever that
the libraries built one big summoning circle
. I have to admit that I don’t remember so much about the final fight since for some reasons, I was zoning out a lot while reading it. 

What I furthermore liked about this book was the writing style. It portrays the emotions of the main character well, describes magic and everything else quite vividly and creates atmospheric settings, like the libraries or the Thorn Manor. What I noticed though is that the German translation that I’ve read had some grammar mistakes and missing words. 

When looking at the characters, I liked both Nathaniel and Elisabeth. Elisabeth was sometimes a bit too naïve for my taste, e. g. believing that Ashcroft’s doctor would actually help her. There was some chemistry between them, and I appreciated that the romance was more on the slow burn side – because we meet him in the course of the first pages, I was afraid that I would be an insta love. What was also great was the development of the characters. Another character I liked was Silas. He’s so interesting and you should never forget that he’s a demon, no matter how nicely he acts. 

Overall, I have the feeling that more could have been made of Sorcery of Thorns. With the world and the characters, there’s an interesting basis but the plot just lacked some things for me. 
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