This book has Menolly as the main POV and along with fighting baddies she is trying to plan for her wedding to Nerissa. There was some fighting but for the most part it is go go go for the three sisters fighting the demons. More attacks on friends and life going forward for minor players in the book. A decent read for fans of the series but certainly not the place for anyone new to read. Even with backstory dropped into the plot to refresh the reader about the past it is a bit much to expect someone to try the series this late into it. ( )

This is told from Menolly's PoV and I'd say best read fairly close to the previous book, 'Shaded Vision' fresh in your mind. I had forgotten some things and you may not get the whole subtext on some things if it isn't fresh. The book starts with going to Other World, and you'd think the story would stay there with the Queen introducing them to three new characters they have to deal with (but don't necessarily trust), then they are sent to another part of Otherworld to deal with their father and work another agreement with that group. Do they stay in Otherworld? Nope, they go back to Earth and are plunged into one thing after another. Between personal entanglements, fighting ghosts, siphoning creature attacks, I honestly felt it was way over the top, but maybe that's what the author wanted. She definitely repeated how overwhelmed they were and tired of the constant putting out fires. The great thing about big arching series is that you get to revisit previous characters and see what's happening in their lives, and usually you get to learn more about other characters or histories. The bad thing about these double digit series books is that when they are still fighting the same fight, you begin to wish it would end. Don't get me wrong I really enjoy these characters, I just want the big bad they keep fighting to be over and give us something new. I did like seeing Menolly's wedding to Nerissa Shale.

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I read it all, unlike other recent books in the series. Wasn't bad, had Menolly and Nerissa getting married. Roman helped out Menolly and she may have more powers to show in the future. Not a lot of battling, but some action and moved the story arc along slowly. ( )

Menolly and her sisters continue their epic battle against Shadow Wing and his quest to bring the demons to Earth and the Otherworld. A new front has opened up in Otherworld, the sorcerers rising up from the Southern Wastes to bring the world to war again.

While on Earth, the Lord of Ghosts has unleashed a torrent of spectral monsters preying on any with sufficient magic to be tasty – but their goal may be far more insidious than that.

And through all this, Menolly has a wedding to plan – and to find out exactly where she stands with Roman, and, through him, where she stands with the vampires as a whole.

Reviewing this series is becoming increasingly more difficult – because I often find myself without anything original to say that I haven’t said about the previous 11 books; they’re all strong in the same way, they’re all weak in the same way, all that changes is the details of how those strengths and weaknesses are expressed

On the plus side we have an incredible rich, broad world. I honestly don’t think I’ve read an Urban Fantasy series that has even close to the varied world that this has. And it’s more than just the standard grabbing an encyclopaedia of world myths and legends and just copying down every name. Every group, every faction has its own history and politics and goals and depths – they’re more than just a word or a brief thumbnail: they’re cultures and peoples and realised characters

The same applies to side characters, very few of the named characters in this book are just names. They have histories and lives and goals and personalities – there’s a lot of fully fleshed out people in this series – not just names and place holders

Together this increases the epicness of this book: there is a real cost to battles lost because people will be lost, people who have been established as having meaning and a presence. There’s also a great sense of the epic brewing because of all of these cultures and forces coming together – either as allies or enemies – each of them throwing their force to the war – but also their history and culture to the battle.

The downside to all this is the books are really stuffed, there’s a lot of exposition, a lot of distraction and this can leave the whole series feeling unbearably overloaded and awfully slow because there’s so much to dredge through before we can even come close to reaching the meta. Especially since so much of the books are unnecessary side plots, recaps or exposition.

Take this book – we had some excellent development of the world building of the vampires, what it means to be a vampire, their origins and their culture. We had some good look into Otherworld History with the southern wars against the Sorcerers and how that relates to them being a current threat and some world building on the nature of magic. This lead to some foreshadowing for the future as well as another front in the battle. The main plot was against battling against Shadow Wing’s chief evil lieutenant in the world and it actually took up a fair amount of the book making it at least a somewhat dominant focus of the characters that is better than in previous books where it felt like an afterthought

On a personal note to the sisters, Menolly focuses some of her attention on her relationships with Nerissa and Roman, finding where they all fit and restating her dedicated commitment.

This is all good – all of these plot lines advance the world, the setting and the main plot – they’re fun, they’re interesting and they bring the good stuff

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Another great story on the D'Artigo sisters. ( )