E-Book, 371 Pages
Adult/ Urban Fantasy
By: K.D. Edwards
Rating: 🌟🌟🌟
“My name is Rune Saint John. I am, before anything else, a survivor:”
There are a few things that encouraged me to pick this one up including its length and the fact that it is an LGBT story written by a man and I was so desperate for such stories specially after finishing the Green Creek Series by Klune. On the other hand, this is Urban fantasy which is one of my least favorite fantasy genres.
Going straight to the point: This was disappointing. It gets 3 stars from me because there were a lot of things that were done right, otherwise I would have DNFed the book and moved on.
Let’s start with the positives: The world building is very cool, very unique and I don’t think I read similar things before. The title of the series is the Tarot Sequence which made me think tarots will be part of the magic system but that wasn’t really the case. The magic is embedded into sigils and other stuff and it can come with cool effects like glowing eyes just like on the cover. The Tarots are some of the strongest magicians in the world hence the name of the series. The story line is also intriguing and although this starts kind of on the mystery side and trying to rescue a character, the story line takes a turn into a bit more dramatic stuff later.
The writing is okay, I wasn’t a big fan of the humor and it was a bit confusing at some points but also it was intense and gripping at other points specially the flash backs so I had mixed feelings about it.
The characters felt a bit flat for me which really affected my enjoyment of the story. Rune felt like the baby that they are all trying to protect and he had that martyrdom tendency all the time. Addam is not bad but came as too pushy and inappropriate at some times. Brand is cool and should be protected at all costs. But for the most part, I couldn’t find myself caring about the characters and relating to them. The majority of the characters were not straight and it was kind of normal in that world which is cool. The problem is that I recently finished Brothersong by Klune and Words of Radiance by Sanderson both of which had extremely well written characters and world building so I know a balance can be struck and this was not the case here.
Summary: I had expectations for this book that were never met. The world-building and writing and even the plot were all good but I never made a connection to the characters which really affected my enjoyment of the story. Unfortunately, I am going to follow my heart with this one and DNF the series.
The book prescription 