Wow. Just, wow.

This new world of Lingua Magika is an absolute masterpiece. I make no attempt to hide the fact that I love Kat Ross' fantasy series and her Gaslamp Gothic series. However, the worldbuilding in A Feast of Phantoms left me begging for more. It lit up my brain in a way that I can hardly explain. I wanted more. I needed more.

The story centers around Deputy Ruth Cortez, her gun Doc and their run-in with Marshal Sebastian Hardin and Lee Merriweather four enigmatic and likeable characters. Cortez is a by-the-book character of high morals. Doc is a phantom cursed to live in a gun, and he has highly questionable motives and morals. Merriweather is a genius who broke loose of his leash, he's just looking for the fun he's been denied his whole life. Hardin is 100% a company man, He hardly sleeps because he's so devoted to serving the Carnarvon's.

Upon the canvas of her genius worldbuilding Ross paints the intersection of these four characters, their motives and their strong wills and it is *chef's kiss* perfect.

Then there are the villains. Sometimes is difficult to know who exactly is a villain, but the main villains who are revealed in the later half of the book and just too creepy and terrible.

I haven't even talked about the inventiveness of lingua magika yet. This magic system really ties the whole feeling of the book together. It's fanatical yet defines the fantasy genre in so many ways.

It all just leaves you wanting more.

Bottom Line:
Get it. Read it. Love it. If my stars on most other books are Yelp stars, this book gets Michelin stars. It's on a whole other level of good.

The third book is coming out later this year and it promises to be a humdinger.

"How to explain the way Lee made me feel? Like I was holding hands with my dad on his deathbed and he asked me to swear something infinitely precious and reasonable before he exhaled his last breath." ( )

Feast of Phantoms is the first book in Kat Ross' newest series- Lingua Magika. Set in a 'wild west' time frame, Feast follows Deputy Cortez as she is drafted from her small town of Lucky Boy to assist Marshal Hardin with a dangerous captive. All she was supposed to do was help get the captive to the next town. Life has other plans though. The captive gets free, and the train derailed. In an effort to regain the prisoner, Cortez is pulled into the high stakes world of the Carnarvon family. Can Cortez see her mission through without getting too tangled in the family's affairs? And what is up with her possessed gun?

Truth time- While I did enjoy Feast, it wasn't among my favourite of Ross' books. I LOVED the Fourth Talisman and Gaslamp Gothic series. I still need to read the Fourth Element series, but it's the precursor to Talisman, and has many of the same characters, so I have little doubt I'll adore that series too. So, what was it about this one? Part, I know, is that I'm just not a fan of the Old West, and Western books are not my normal fare. If it hadn't been a book by Kat Ross, who has become a 'must-read' author for me, then I'd probably have passed it by altogether. While I don't dislike the characters in Feast, most didn't pique my interest. The two I'm most interested in is Lee Merriwether, and Doc. Lee is a cheeky rogue. And young. He's a savant, with a gift for grim languages, and can charm nearly any phantom he comes across to do what he asks. Doc is the phantom that is attached to the gun Cortez carries. She's not formally trained or bonded with Doc, but he generally listens to her, and seems to care about her to a certain degree. He's very adamant at one point, that his gun belongs to Cortez.

All that being said, I will most definitely read the next in the series. I'm really looking forward to learning more about the phantoms, and especially about Doc. And… Roger. (It's priceless when the characters are incredulous that this powerful phantom has such a mundane name.) I'm also going to be keeping my fingers crossed for another Gaslamp Gothic novel, or even better, a book focusing on the Ava Vatra from the Fourth Talisman series. Bonus points if it has Nico in it!

Recommended for those who enjoy Kat Ross' books, and those who enjoy a dose of magic with their Westerns.

***Many thanks to the authors/ publisher for providing an egalley in exchange for a fair and honest review. Reviewed for XPresso Blog Tours ( )