I cannot believe that I have made it to book 25 in this series. The first book I got was Book Of The Dead, not realizing this was a series, on my lunch break and work. I know that I have been severely disappointed in the second half of this series, especially the last couple of books. I didn't really hold high expectations for this one, based on how irritated I was at the last ones, but I have committed to this series, and I am a faithful reader. To begin with, two people that I do not like did not appear in this book, and I thought that was a great omen. It has been five years since the last book came out, and I have either forgotten something that happened with Marino or it is a new development, but ugh. WHY. Lucy did not infuriate me for once, which I was grateful about. She used to be one of my favorite characters until the last five or so books, and I was really starting to hate her. The three main complaints I have about this book are as follows:

1. I completely understand mentioning coronavirus/riots/presidents because it helps the timeline, is necessary for the story, and are ongoing events, but I am just tired of all that mess and prefer to read to get a break from that. (That being said, I generally do not read fiction books or series and stick to nonfiction and history books, so I shouldn't complain I guess.)
2. For it to take five years to put this book out, I feel like there could have been some better character names. August Ryan. Maggie Cutbush. Boone Cotton. Cliff Sallow. I mean....
3. The book was interesting and then all of a sudden *bam* the last two pages tried to tie up all the little spiderweb storylines with nice little bows. I was really disappointed in the quick wrap up after investing in all this stuff. It was a wham bam thank you maam type of ending, and I hate that.

For those above reasons, I did not give it a 4 rating that I originally planned. I hope that if she puts out another on in this series it continues to get better. Perhaps she will kill off Dorothy. I would celebrate that.