Lire has changed a lot over the last two books – she’s
come a long way from the Clairvoyant who helped in police cases. Now as Earth’s
only Adept – one of only two known – she is in high demand. And many forces,
especially factions of the fae, are desperate to control her
But behind that is the looming threat of the demonic
invasion – and who else can unite the disparate forces to face off this threat?
When I first started this book I had a horrible moment of
confusion – because I had no idea what was going on. We had vampires and
witches and psychics and magic and djinn and two factions of fae and a demon
invasion. In the middle of all this is Lire, a Clairvoyant with a collection of
new psychic powers she can barely control who also has an essential and deeply
rare ability that is not only generally in high demand but will be essential
when facing the demonic invasion and is valued by the fae as utterly necessary
for their civilisation to continue.
That’s a lot to swallow – but within a few pages it all
came flooding back and I remembered how huge and wonderful this world was, how
much fun the characters are and how layered and interesting the plot line was.
And very quickly paced – this book hit the ground running. There was no
standalone stuffing, you cannot pick up this book without having read the
previous two books first – because the plot begins straight away and we dive in
to this world with a full expectation of the reader to know what’s happening.
And I love it. No padding, no fluff, no unnecessary explanations – we get into
the plot and the meat.
You need to have read the two previous books first and I
strongly advise it because I love this series
The plot is complex and involved with Lire doing a lot of
growth while also fiercely staying true to herself. Learning as she goes,
dealing with a lot of very different characters from different factions all
with their own full agendas – and none of them (ok, maybe the demons) can just
be condemned as pure evil for the sake of it.
This book also did an amazing thing – it
took so many of the issues I had with the last book and did amazing things with
them.
The biggie – I didn’t like Kieren and Lire’s
relationship. I didn’t like how quickly it happened. I didn’t like how they
passed over his consent-shattering woo-woo. I didn’t like that it came with a
sideorder that she needed to magically bond with him to be safe. I didn’t like
how their romance quickly consumed a large amount of the story and I really
didn’t like that Kieren’s offences were pretty much overlooked.
And pretty early on in this book we see a whole lot of
woo-woo behind it. And while other books would look at this as wonderfully
romantic here we have Lire pretty much laying down the law of how not ok this
is and reversing it as fast as she possibly can. I loved how she instantly
backed out of this as fast as she could with lots of condemnation and anger.
And, unfortunately, rather a lot of depressing forgiveness, but more on that
later. It did a really good job of taking the romance I steadily disliked in
the last book and making it all excellent
This also did a really good job of addressing how quickly
Lire wrote off Vince in the last book as well – another issued I had.
Seriously, it’s like a point by point fixing of every
problem I had with the last book.
Like Lire’s overly-compassionate forgiveness that was
getting on my last nerve in the last book. And she keeps doing this, she keeps
being very very forgiving, very very compassionate; no matter what people have
done to her she continually finds it in her heart to forgive her. This book
continues this but it has two excellent twists
Firstly, Lire’s compassion is explained by the fact she
is a Clairvoyant. She constantly sees things through other people’s eyes
because of her power to read them by touching them or objects people have
touched. She is an expert at seeing things from different points of view. She
is an expert at knowing no-one is simply evil, that everyone has a reason, even
a good reason (to them) to do what they do. This makes her naturally
understanding and empathetic because she is so used to seeing the complexity of
people’s motivations. It’s an excellent development of what it means to be a
Clairvoyant (or empath or telepath) and one I’ve never seen developed before in
the past.
On top of that we also have Lire’s compassion become such
an amazing strength when faced with so many characters who are doing brutal,
terrible things for the greater good, Lire doesn’t become one of them. I love
this – because Urban Fantasy is full of grittiness and characters deciding they
simply have to kill/maul/torture/support Donald Trump and do other terrible,
inexcusable things. Lire not only resists that, but she also achieves amazing
things by doing this. She wins this book not because she is ruthless, not
because of her super powers – but because she is kind. Because she has moral
lines she will not cross. And the book doesn’t feel the need to punish her for
this.
It doesn’t make the book is super naïve and fluffy. The
balance is good, because we do have these characters doing terrible thing, Lire
condemning them but at the same time knowing why they’re doing it – because they
feel like they have no choice (like the King of the Fae who massacres and
tortures humans for the sake of preserving his people and the planet). She
doesn’t condone it but she sees their reasoning and through that the book does
give a nod to people feeling they have no good option.
I can’t say this enough – this book has taken all my
problems and not just fixed them but created a whole new level from it. Even
her new budding relationship with Tiereachan and the need to bond with him
comes with a whole lot of suspicion and reservation and actual development
Extra bonus? She looks back at her slut-shamy opinions of
herself AND of her receptionist Monica which I mentioned as an issue in Deadly
Remains and realises how wrong she was, correcting herself. Yes, I’m
gleeful.
And here’s a fascinating little twist – we have a vampire
who actually pretended to be a child to go to school in order to learn. Yes
actual learn. I mean no-one learns in school in Urban Fantasy! But this
actually makes sense, I mean a 300 year old being is going to need to update
their education to a modern level and school is a good place for that (though
reading YA and Urban Fantasy would definitely surprise you on that)
In terms of marginalised people we’re still not in a
great place though. Lire is an excellent female character and she’s address her
previous issues. But despite having strong female friends in Jules and Kim,
neither of them play a dominant role in a book which is very very very very
very very male. Jules is basically a damsel and Kim – who is also the book’s
sole LGBT character (she’s bisexual. Her partner is mentioned but not really
present) who largely exists as a spokesperson for Brassal, the male fae she’s
linked to (part of the excellent world building of how fae communicate across
the barrier between worlds) more than as an independent character. Everyone else around Lire – Kieran, Red,
Tiereachan, Michael, Fisk, Alex the vampire, Caiside – a whole lot of men
there.
In terms of POC I can only think of Nathan, the enemy
vampire who at least may become more involved in future books. We have Diedra
Yamaguchi who is Asian – but she only has a brief role as Alex’s menaced
lackey. Again we may see her more in the future but not much there now. It’s
possible that the leader of the hunt is a POC since he is described as being “tawny
skinned”. Again this isn’t a major character since he’s more of a force that
Lire worked to humanise – which, I say again, has the potential to be more in
the future. I say that a lot – and it’s good but we need more now.
Despite that – and yes, it is a big issue – I still loved
this book. It did a great job of looking at all the issues that I’d previously
had while still having an awesome plot, excellent pacing and excellent world
setting. I love it and I have so much hope for future books in this series
