Cynna is a Finder, and a damn good one, able to find
almost everything over a vast range. It’s a power that is high in desire –
including by the Gnomish rulers of Edge, another realm that is now accessible after
the magic flares.
The Realm is in danger – but the ambassadors from Edge
are certainly not to be trusted and may have their own agenda.
On top of this, Cynna has to deal with her feelings on
another matter – she’s pregnant, and the father is a sorcerer who is essential
to their plan for Edge.
What I think is bothering me a little about this series
is how out there we have suddenly been thrown. When the first book, Tempting
Danger, in this series came along, we had Lily in San Diego, working
with supernatural within the world, adapting, learning, revealing the world. Then
in book 2, Mortal
Danger, Lily is suddenly in a Hell dimension surrounded by demons and
she’s split in 2 and it’s all kind of abruptly very new. Then book 3, Blood
Lines we switched to Cynna and we’re up to our eyebrows in demons and
alternate dimensions and magic waves and the whole world now under threat.
And now we’re travelling to Edge, a different dimension
that resembled a high fantasy more than anything. And I kind of want to go back
to Tempting Danger.
It’s not that I don’t like this direction of the books –
but I need more time. I needed, maybe, 2 or 3 books between Tempting Danger before we reached Mortal Danger so I could spend some time
getting to know Lily and werewolves and magic and Cynna – get to know the world
before the whole world is dumped into a blender and mixed up so completely. I
feel lost, I feel adrift – I needed more of a foundation before I was dragged
off into these different world and fae and gnomes and magic and Ahk and whole
new political systems. It’s not that this story was bad, by any stretch of the
imagination – but I don’t know this world well enough to be read to have this
many wrenches thrown into the works and I’m too adrift to keep running with it.
I don’t know Cynna well enough for this. I don’t know the world, the magic, the
entitles enough for this. Let me catch up!
Ok, the story… ok I was never actually bored reading it,
I never wanted to stop and I never found it dull – but it’s a really basic
quest story. Cynna, with her magic finding power, has to find the McGuffin
(yes, I’m calling it that because it really is irrelevant what it is) which
everyone else wants as well. So they head off. Occasionally they’re attacked,
occasionally they batter from one person seeking McGuffin to the next, but it’s
not really meaningful to our actual characters.
It’s not badly written, it’s not boring, it’s not poorly paced, but nor was it especially exciting with any real twists or deviations and the world it’s revealing through this is Edge – which is a different realm entirely so I’m not even that invested in the world building. The B plot is Cynna and Cullen’s love which, is nice and non-problematic… but also not especially complex or conflict laden (which isn’t a problem – a non-conflict laden romance is excellent) and doesn’t balance the very linear A plot.
