One of those King books that’s more about the character study than anything else. 

It had some heart, but what & why else… I can’t say.

Eh. I gave it a shot & it was better than the 1st book with the world building mostly err somewhat out of the way, but there’s a chaotic amount of really mid sex scenes. A few major developments in the plot were interesting &unique. In the authors note St Clair says straight out that she had no plans for anyone’s back story & that comes through… …not EVERY character can be morally grey!

Audio was probably not the best format for this for me, it’s told through an interview & there are time jumps back &forth.
But, it was really good, like a cross between Anne Rice (atmospheric, ancient vampires) & “The Witcher” (he’s a 10 but his best friend is a horse)

Part domestic thriller, part Amityville. I wish I liked it, but I didn’t. I can deal with an unlikable protag if the payoff is good enough…. 😬 

 

At the acknowledgment the author talks about her mental health struggles & how she poured her misery into they MC, & how she recovered & that arc, but that’s absent from the resolution of this book.

I liked this much more than the 1st book, it’s not as bogged down by world building. Camille’s behavior in the beginning is completely baffling to me, but aside from that it’s really good. 

Taking place 12 years after Salt & Sorrow, Verity is ready to debut, however her past is still impacting her, her sister tries to shelter her, but she leaves & takes a job painting a portrait for Alex whose disability has kept him from high society. 

I was hoping that the author would avoid a particularly shitty disability trope & she did. That ending has me already waiting for the next one. 

Def in the running for being my favorite King novel. 

The action at the ending got tough to follow, maybe too many worldbuilding ideas, but the character interactions were awesome.

Unlike ACO-whatever where things sort of start happening & you catch up later & go “yeah makes sense”, this 1 has worldbuilding, a more modern/unique world. As such, the first 1/2 of the book moves slower, but there are important little breadcrumbs that come back later in the story. It was great, I loved Bryce. & as always, Maas can write the Hel out of a hurt comfort scene, a trope for which I am a huge sucker.