Mercy doesn’t have time to focus on her pregnancy – not with
the ongoing hostility of the Anchors, the return of her highly dangerous sister
and the plotting of an ancient and terrifying witch, danger abounds
But so do revelations – both from the family’s darker
past as well as about the very nature of the line, of magic, of the fae and of
her husband – there’s a lot of Mercy to take in and all of it has dire
consequences for her family. And for her child.
The book almost confuses me, or, rather my reactions
confuse me. In some ways, I think that the story is almost too convenient and
too full. Like Peter – what happens to him and how he leaves the story. Or
Maddy and, after so much emotional turmoil then handing over such a perfect
solution to resolve the issues her presence raised. Or the conflict Jessamine
rose, again settled very neatly
And the ending itself, a wonderful convenient way of
resolving just about everything and all conflicts.
However, maybe this is just because I’m so used to
unresolved plot lines being left hanging for book after book after book that I
can’t even see a closed, resolved storyline without thinking it’s somehow
convoluted or simplistic. Because each one of these storylines came with either
an excellent advancement of the world setting, some great emotional development
or some excellent emotional questioning
Like the introduction of Jessamine led to the whole
development of Gehenna, the introduction of the idea of magical constructs
creating and maintaining the world as well as a whole lot of family history
disrupting a lot of Taylor sacred assumptions (I can’t say I could empathise
with any of them myself as I’m not sure I would have cared as much about their outrage
but then I don’t have the same sense of family history and family name that
they do).
The whole Peter storyline and him being fae allowed the whole world building, the nature of the fae and the nature of the line be introduced and developed. It allowed us a very natural, very smooth way to see a lot more of the mechanics behind the world, how the line was created and the whole history of witches. It offered a whole lot world building in an extremely natural fashion without any issues of convoluted info-dumping
And Maddy, she offered a lot of complexity – especially as her whole story was teased out and her history which led a lot of questioning of whether she’s a villain, a victim, whether she needs to atone, whether she can atone and whether she even knows how to fit in the world any more: especially when her passionate loyalty to Mercy making her actually dangerous since she has no middle ground, no reservations and no subtlety. Handling her becomes a massive moral complexity all on its own – as does managing their murderous half-brother
These moral complexities are the kind of things that have
been an ongoing theme of the series, ever since Mercy woke up and experienced
her magical nature and the magical world. Everything is complicated, nothing is
how it originally appeared, everything needs to be questioned and the villains
are never as evil as you think while none of the friends or allies are as
perfect as you’d like them to be even when they are beloved family.
It’s complicated and I still just can’t pin down how I
feel about it with the levels of complexity, the characters and their layers,
the evolving world and Mercy trying to find her path through this all with her
pregnancy, the other magical families, her mother and the many other threats
that are assailing her from every side. It’s complex and difficult yet also all
ends so very neatly… perhaps too much so.
We have some POC- Jessamine was introduced as a whole
different branch of the family that also connects the Taylors more directly to
Jilo and adds a lot more strength to Jilo’s antipathy. She’s not a major
character but I hope she will become one. Jilo is consistently referred to in
the warmest terms and while I love that she is so beloved, at the same time the
fact she became a whole mother figure for Mercy up to and including sacrificing
herself for her reeks of Mammy tropes. I liked her character, I liked that
everyone praised her power and ability and acknowledged her expertise but the
tropes around her are terrible.
Adam is a Black gay man but is not a huge character. I do
like the conflicts he faces over police work, the witches, keeping their
secrets while trying to reconcile solving the cases and achieving justice. He
wants to use magic, but the cost of magic is not something he yet understands.
He has a lot of balancing to do between worlds.
Oliver is another character who I quite liked but at the
same time he was dogged by tropes. He’s a gay man, highly manipulative,
deceptive with a rocky relationship past and, like Jilo, ends up sacrificing
himself for the sake of Mercy and her child – it’s a fraught trope, the
sacrificing, serving gay man.
A lot of this is addressed with the weird ending but it’s
still problematic.
The ending leaves me… almost torn. On the one hand it
ends pretty satisfactorily, addresses a lot of dubious issues and creates a
happily every after that really fixes everything that was broken and painful in
the Taylor history. It’s a really interesting ending really because it brings
to the fore just how much these people have been damaged by these events. By
reversing all the terrible events that have left them all so emotionally
scarred it really shows those scars ad how long they have lasted.
It creates a happily ever after that is surprising,
bitter sweet, a very shocking twist and generally satisfying – if a bit twee – and
then we have the end twist. It’s a twist that sets us up for another book… but
it kind of feels inserted. Like this series was finished, it ended and I ended
well – and we have an eleventh hour addition so another book can be squeezed
out.
