We follow Delilah this book – and how her life has
changed. Following a skunk-inspired make-over and realising that her relationship
with the now nigh-immortal Chase is coming to a close, she enters a new chapter
of her life with the Autumn Lord – and his sexy representative.
Along the way, they have a kidnapped werewolf to rescue,
a spirit seal to find and some dangerous werecoyotes to thwart. And, of course,
there’s still the Bonecrusher to defeat – and she’s bringing the fight to the
sisters’ home.
This series is HUUUUUUUUUUUGE!
And I don’t just mean number of books. I can tackle several books. But it’s HUUUUUGE within those books. It has a vast cast of characters and the author has really gone out of her way to ensure every single one of those characters is a character. They’re not just names. They have things happening in their lives. They have lives, they have issues, they have their own stories and battles and causes.
Which is certainly good in some ways, don’t get me wrong! But there are a gazillion billion trillion of them all handling their stuff at the same time. Ok, maybe not handling their stuff, but certainly mentioning their stuff at least.
This goes along with a huge amount of recapping. A truly
vast amount of recapping – and so much has happened in each sister’s life and
the story in general that some of it is helpful – but it adds to the
unwieldiness, bogs down the pacing and drags the story down.
There’s also still a problem with the writing. It has
IMMENSELY improved since earlier books, don’t get me wrong, especially the
fight scenes (though I still think we see far more of what everyone else is
doing in combat than is realistic or necessary) but we still have things like
the group meetings where everything is reiterated (again, not nearly as bad).
The worst habit remaining though are clothes, cares and scenary. They can drive
from A to B without me knowing exactly how they’re getting there, I don’t need
to know what car they’re driving or who is in what car and I really really
really don’t need to know what clothes everyone is wearing all the time. By
this stage, we know what clothes everyone habitually wears, take it as a given.
In fact, even if all the characters were just names there
are still far too many people for me to keep them all together and I’m forgetting
people because there’s just so much to keep track of. Seamus, Rozuriel, Carter
(and his daughter – I entirely forgot to pair of them), the sisters’ father,
Zachary, the necromancer bloke, the healing elf, various and sundry
shapeshifters…
I feel like there’s just a lot of storylines that maybe
aren’t needed – some of them make for great background flavour so long as it
doesn’t intrude further. But we’ve already got the 3 sisters and then there’s
Chase and his new immortality, and a new dragon on the scene (and we’ve
recently had the rather unnecessary distraction of Smokey’s father) and now we
have Carter’s demon network/titan research group. We have the humans and their
anti-fae antagonism. We have the sister’s father turning on Camille. I just
wonder if they’re really all necessary – or if it’s necessary to have them
involved as much as they are – especially when you pile on all the new
characters as well.
The problem with all these elements crammed in is that I
find myself less patient with cute little scenes like Delilah being skunked, or
Narissa drunk and I’m even coming to find Maggie the gargoyle – who I love – an
impediment simply because there’s so much crammed into the book, I want to trim
everything.
Still – this bloat is a problem but it is my only problem
with the book. Which is saying something. If it weren’t for the bloat, it would
probably be a 4 or higher, but the bloat annoys me.
I liked Delilah and her growth since the first book – and
so very well symbolised in this one. She’s tougher, she’s stronger, she’s
become harder and has had a good look at her life and relationships and moved
on in a mature fashion. Yes, there’s grief and pain, as there should be, but
she’s still moved on. I didn’t appreciate that the minute she ended things with
Chase, Shade showed up – I think it was a little convoluted and a little
convenient to say the least. But leaving that aside, she has grown and it works
for her.
We had some good resolution of the Bonecrusher story arc,
it was fun and exciting but, alas, I again kind of missed parts of it because I
didn’t remember all the 8 bazillion names.
There was still a very strong sense of epic, but I think
that is being lost as the story gets broader and more extraneous elements are
added – Shadow Wing and the threat he represents seems to be falling more into
the background as we have Autumn Lords running around and family and
relationship dramas and dangerous werecoyotes and terrifying drugs and Camille
going to hospital every 5 minutes. It has an awesome, excellent story – but the
series is letting both the wide number of fully realised, developed characters and
this wide, extremely deep and fascinating world overwhelm the story.
It feels contrary to complain because the things that are
damaging this series in my eyes are the same things I normally love about a
series. The world is wide, incredibly broad with a vast array of forces,
supernatural, politics. I love that the world doesn’t revolve around the
sisters, I love that it grows and moves and changes and isn’t just a backdrop
for their actions.
I love that there are so many characters who are developed with their own lives and agendas. I love that they’re not just servants and extensions of the main cast. They’re real people and so much work has gone into making them so. They’re not just background colour to show off the D’Artigo sisters
Inclusionwise we have a plethora of strong female
characters with their different strengths. Positive sexuality, moral clarity,
knowledge, sexually active and unashamed. While pretty much all of them are
warriors, they’re not defined as warriors as why they’re well rounded, strong
characters (especially since there are definitely people more powerful than
them out there). And it’s not just the sisters – the massively huge cast also
includes several other skilled women.
I even kind of like one of the women’s betrayal because
she was treated so delicately by her step-father. She had power, she had
potential and she was angered and frustrated by his refusal to let her develop.
If you’re going to have a villainous woman then there’s the way to go. Even the
big bad Bonecrusher, a Lamia, was terrifying and dangerous because she’s a giant
poisonous snake with necromancy not because she’s a dangerous seductive sex
beast.
Menolly and Nerissa are maintaining their relationship –
while they still have fun with men they have, in a switch from what is so
common for bisexual women in Urban fantasy, made each other their primary
relationship and seem to be sticking to it.
We do have POC – Carter’s daughter and Morio but only
Morio is what can be considered a major character and he still isn’t as
prominent as most of the rest of the main cast. With such a huge cast of
characters more racial diversity is a definite need.
I love this series, I liked this book – but sometimes I
feel like I need a flowchart and a sheaf of notes to keep track of everything
that is happening. I think it could benefit from some spin off books – to round
up character’s lives while keeping the main series focused on the plot.
