erika_schmidtwestfall 's review for:

A Forbidden Alchemy by Stacey McEwan

4.5

adventurous tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: N/A

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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I LOVED this book and fully expect to consider upping the rating to 5 stars on a reread / after the next books come out to give it some context and points that I think were (intentionally) underdeveloped in this book. It annoyed me that Nina had a first person POV and Patrick had a third person POV (at one point in the book, Patrick’s chapter uses first person as a one off so I’m sure there’s a story there about intentionally switching from dual first person POVs). 

Patrick is 100% Tommy Shelby from Peaky Blinders and I’m not mad about it at all. My god I fell for him fast, THE YEARNING from this man. The Colson brothers are the other Shelby brothers too, and again, no problem here. 

The magic system was so fun; reminiscent of the Grishaverse a bit but lots more explicit chat on class and imposed poverty. 


*SPOILERS FROM HERE ON*
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Nina is extremely frustrating but that’s the point - this book is going to set up her big push in the next book(s) to save Patrick’s life and I think it’s going to be really really satisfying to see her growth. I didn’t fully understand her motivation for accepting the mission from Tanner; we got a bit of it in later chapters but there’s not a lot of set up to explain her relationship with her mom that would motivate her like that. 

Excited to see more on Theo; I want more on his fluctuating decisions at the end of the book. 

Cannot WAIT to find out which of the 7 sold Patrick out to Tanner.

Bring on book 2!!