MUCH TO BE DESIRED.

It almost pains me to give this book such a low rating because I loved the first book so much. This one however, left too much to be desired.

Jules Ember is not the sharpest tool in the shed. For a heroine who is trying to avoid the Sorceress and the law in general I don’t think it’s wise to let everyone know who you are. She was constantly going to places and events and letting everyone know her plans. Of course she was found!? Jules also kept sending mixed messages to everyone. She’d spit angry things at them, then turn around and basically shout her feelings at her friends/lover.

Liam is the only reason I hung onto this book. I loved his character from Everless. This was a total annihilation of his persona. “His face reddened” more times than I could count. Love struck fool was not a good look on him. It was rushed in comparison to how he treated Jules previously. Though, he was almost the real hero because he repeatedly saved Jules from her own mistakes. It was an odd, off-balanced pairing.

The original book captured my attention because of the blood as time and currency concept. I’ve seen other reviews that mentioned this isn’t totally new (in my case, I haven’t read others like this yet) so I was intrigued! It made things a bit twisted and confusing [in a good way]. Evermore never brought this into play. There was only mentions on the side about others doing using this alchemy.

All of Jules visions were throwing me off big time. They would come at random moments (That’s So Raven anyone?) and not make total sense. It was interrupting the flow of the plot itself. At least the last vision answered a lot of the questions I was stumped on about the actual relationship between The Alchemist and The Sorceress.

Lastly, I profoundly loathe obvious, cliche moments. Pure love conquers pure evil y’all. *sigh*

Overall audience notes:
- Young adult fantasy
- No language
- Romance: a few kisses, one loosely implied love scene
- Violence: knives, a bit of blood, murder