hmm… number two still has the childish feel of teenagers pretending to be adults while not really understanding the responsibility of being an adult, and dragging all their immaturity into adult-type decisions…

But then there were some heightened bits of action that kept it rolling and a creative few facts about witches and witch hunters, a smattering of magical animals and werewolves, and a bit of fantasy circus intertwined. Many of the adults in the story are misguided, untrustworthy types, and even the 'trusted' ones raise the creep flag. Plot twists and scheming and a whole lot of supposed surprises come in this second half, and the whole thing is a mess of action and people discovering secrets about others and secrets about themselves, and no one is really who they think they are, and certainly not who we think they are. Except, the ‘bad guys’ really are bad with no fuzzy grey-areas. Everyone else, however, is painted in opaque grey, and you just never know…

It gets ugly at times in these thick intimate relationships, what with everyone keeping the truth to themselves, and hiding their feelings. Some characters are only there to make you hate them so they can be used as the hated fodder set up as targets for all the needed hatred at the climax—to facilitate that last major plot twist. Other characters are more like bits of folded paper shoved under the short leg of a wobbly table.

In parts, it feels like a bunch of particularly whiney Gen-Z youths have been accidentally crammed into an historical late-1700s faux-French landscape that in fact is not very French, neither is it true to its Romantic Era setting. It’s heavy with chatter you’d find on the DM feed of a seventeen year old who thinks themselves smarter than the average adult, but these teens are capable of wielding knives and swords and feel mature enough to tie the knot.

So, it’s entertaining, at least.

The title makes sense, though.