This book continues the Black Jewels series, which had been pretty much wrapped up, so I was interested to see where the author would go from there.
I really liked the parts of the book with Lucivar’s family among the Eyriens. He was given a lot of power when Janelle Angelline passed on, and seeing him and the rest of the family comes to grips with what that means was a worthy continuation of the story. The subplot with his adopted daughter Jillian and the young man who comes courting her could seem overdone if you were coming to this world cold, but what happens with Dillon fits within the wider world set up in the novels.
I didn’t as much enjoy the part of the story focused on Daemon and Surreal’s marriage, and reading reviews after the fact, I’m not alone there. What happens with Surreal is widely out of character for her. I think we’re supposed to think that’s part of the problem, but I don’t buy it. I’m happy for the excuse to get Witch back on the scene, but I’m not loving that this was the mechanism for it.
So hopefully, we’ve gotten the worst of the Daemon/Surreal angst out of the way, because I’m definitely interested to see where the other threads that have been set up will lead. And I actually already own the next two books – I’d gotten them as deals quite a while ago, so finally bit the bullet and bought this book at full price when I got a gift certificate from work – I definitely have weird feelings about buying ebooks at full price. I’m sure that’s a symptom of the trouble with the publishing industry these days, but that needs a post of its own.