Until her parents resurfaced again.
Seeing them alive, those magical orders are demanding her parents be handed over for justice. Or, failing that, that she be handed over in their stead. And her Order isn't willing to go to war over it, they will hand her parents over.
Which leaves Arcadia with very little time in which to exonerate her parents, preferably by finding the demon that did the murders and discovering who summoned it.
We have some interesting premises in this book that focuses on magic, magic users and demons more than other supernatural beings. And demons are vast, incredibly varied and not (necessarily) evil. The sheer variety of the demons itself lends itself to be a very open ended world with a lot of possibilities. The magic system is also one with apparent rules and planning - it may be my geeky love but I always prefer when you can see the how of magic in a world rather than just pointing and having stuff happen. The world and the premise of this series definitely draws me in - I think that alone would make me a follower and certainly makes me look forward to the next book.
There are some intriguing characters, Arcadia, Lon and Jupe all bounce off each other really well, they have an excellent dynamic. They're fun, they're real and there was never a moment when I didn't enjoy reading them.
The romance between Lon and Arcadia also worked for me - they had a decent foundation and work well together which is something of a miracle because it was full of tropes that annoyed me. They went from just meeting to Lon being willing make large investments and risks on Arcadia's behalf. The relationship started with Arcadia hating Lon (for little reason), we had a classic pointless misunderstanding (and since Lon is an empath that just seems even more unnecessary. In fact, as an empathy and a telepath can we skip the whole "does s/he like me?!" angst altogether), an unnecessary jealousy moment and a big dramatic break up which may have been reasonable and have some grounding if it didn't end after less than a day. Despite only knowing each other for, maybe, a week, this relationship has lots of mini-dramas shoe-horned into it. All of them storms in a teacup. Is there a checklist? Do all of these need to be included in a romance? Romance tropes aren't pokeman, your lovers don't have to catch them all.
The pacing of the book works really well in terms of interest - there was never a point when I was bored or felt that a scene dragged on and there was some really fun and powerful action scenes that were really well handled. The story keeps moving forwards and I never felt the need to yell "get on with it". But at the same time Arcadia needed to be more urgent for me. She has a deadline, after which she or her parents are dead - sounds like a reason to go all in. But she doesn't even take time off work straight away, then she dumps the quest into Lon's lap and... what? She'll cast a spell that will take at least a day to return then kind of twiddle her thumbs. The book was never boring, but Arcadia was never in a hurry either.
Still, the story showcased the world and was interesting in its own right - I did enjoy it. And the ending? That was a twist I didn't see coming, not at all.
I also always have mixed emotions about protagonists who are special because of the special power/bloodline/woo-woo of specialness rather than because of their own actions. It can work - so long as there is enough of their own personality as well to back up the specialness.Read more >>
Source: pagan-space.blogspot.com
