REVIEW: Soul of The Sword and Sorcery of Thorns.

Though these books have been out for a while now, I read these as ARCS before they were released. I'm so glad that I can finally get a round to posting these reviews now.

Sorcery of Thorns:

Sorcery of Thorns is a standalone fantasy. You may know Margaret Rogerson from her other book, An Enchantment of Ravens which is about fae.

Nevertheless, This story is set in the land of Austermeer. Magicians and great libraries exist in this world and the libraries hold some of the most powerful books in the land, which are kept there for safekeeping. Enter our protagonist, Elisabeth. Elisabeth knows that sorcerers are evil and was raised as a foundling of Austermeer’s great libraries. She has grown up around the magical grimoires that are kept under lock and key but one day when somebody releases the library’s most dangerous grimoire, all bets are off. She is flung into the situation but it implicates her in the crime, so with the help of sorcerer Nathaniel they find themselves in a conspiracy and must help Austermeer and the world to unravel the mysteries and the lies.

Unfortunately for me, whilst I read this, there was a lot going on in my life and I fell into a reading slump whilst reading this. Whilst I can say that the writing and narrative was enjoyable, I just wasn’t in the right mind space to read it at the time. As such, that has kind of clouded my judgement on this book. Maybe one day, I will read this book again but for now I can only give it 3 out of 5 stars.

Soul of the Sword:

Last year, thanks to netgalley, I read Shadow of the Fox, the first book in this series. Now this year, I am delighted to have the same opportunity to read the sequel, Soul of The Sword.

This book carries on from the first where we met a kitsune shapeshifter Yumeko. When her temple burned to the ground, she found one of the pieces of a powerful scroll known to awaken the dragon, Kami, who will grant one wish to whoever holds the full scroll. Regrettably, in the last book, then demon Hakaimono that was trapped inside a cursed sword was awakened and has escaped. The demon, took with him, one of the people who she cares for most, Kage Tatsumi of the Shadow Clan. Hakaimono has joined forces with the master of demons to find the other pieces of the scroll to overthrow the empire. Yumeko must stop them from doing so or chaos will ensue.

If you loved the first book, you will definitely enjoy the second much more. It expands upon the Japanese lore whilst also bringing it’s own twists and turns to the fantastical. Though the writing in this book is still amazing. It feels like some of it is lacklustre. What I mean by this is, a lot of the storyline is setting up for the third and final book in the trilogy and as such falls to the second book syndrome majority of the time but not all.

In addition to this, at the time that I read this book, I had a lot going on in my life. And as such, this may be has clouded my view on this book. Overall I did enjoy it though so I would still give it 4 out of 5 stars.