Sorcery of Thorns is set in the magical land of Austermeer, where books and libraries hold most of the power - as well as most of the danger. Elisabeth is an orphan who has grown up in one of the country’s Great Libraries, home to deadliest of grimoires, and dreams to be a warden one day, one of the fierce protectors of libraries and their dangerous inhabitants. However, after an attack on her library ends in fatalities with Elisabeth as one of the main suspects, she is forced to question everything she knows about magic and her beloved libraries.

This book came at the absolute perfect time for me. There was a lull in fantasy and sci-fi books in my recent reading schedule and I found myself aching to be transported to another foreign land again, and my book club’s book choice this month finally gave me the chance to jump back into the genre. On top of that, Sorcery of Thorns hit almost all the marks for me to love it, and while my mood/desire to read something in the genre definitely contributed to my love, I feel like I would have greatly enjoyed this book regardless of when I read it.

It’s been a while since I’ve read Enchantment of Ravens (I can’t say I even remember the plot or character’s names…), so I didn’t have any remaining biases going from that book into this one. In general, I do think that Sorcery is more my thing than Enchantment was, and that’s partially due to the world and plot choices of the former, as while I love the fae, magical books and demons just speak more to me.

Generally, I will admit that this isn’t the perfect book. Some parts of the world and plot end up being quite shallow and lacking enough explanation, and some moments pass by too quickly and some things resolved too miraculously, but I believe most of that comes from the choice of having this book be a stand-alone. This story could have easily been spread over the course of a duology, which would have given more space to the world and story to be developed. However, I still enjoyed the stand-alone features of the novel, and am quite relieved I don’t have to wait a year to see Elisabeth’s story followed through. That, and I always believe we need more stand-alones in YA fantasy!

However, even with these shallow moments, I did end up quite enjoying the world that Rogerson built. There is a lot packed into this one book world, from a different demon dimension to a political history, finger-eating magic books to magic vs. anti-magic sentiment. Not all of these could be used to their fullest extent due to the confines of the story + lack of sequels, but the combination of all of them presented a full-fledged world nevertheless. It makes sense that there are more things going on in the world than can be dealt with in one 450 page story, and I found these background stories/world traits contributed to the undertones present in the story.

Where Rogerson truly shined was in her characters. While I’ll admit the main antagonist didn’t really intrigue me like most do, the characters we spend most of the story with were quite intriguing and exceptional. I ended up liking most of them, and the triangles and squares of friendships/relationships that are formed, quite quickly, which is important in a stand-alone novel. It strengthened the sometimes weak plot and made the ending itself more impactful and real, something that’s always important to me. It also kept me reading in lulls during the book, of which I’ll admit there were a few, as if I didn’t care much for the plot direction at that point I at least was learning more about the characters and seeing more of their interactions.

Overall, Sorcery strengthened my like of Rogerson’s novels and writing, and I will definitely be picking up whatever she writes next! This book has made me a permanent fan.