Synopsis:
Twin sorceresses. One Prince Charming. Which sister will win out?
Ambitious young sorceress Rose of Northbrooke is about to graduate. She’s the only known dream sorcerer of her generation and she’s a remarkable one. No wonder she has Prince Sebastien, one of the most eligible royals of the realm trailing her skirts.
But when rumours of dream magic gone awry reach her ear, Rose discovers she’s not the only oneiromancer of her generation. And she might not be the most powerful.
In a faraway cottage, Thorn has lived a simple and isolated life. She longs to be part of the world. When she discovers there’s another dream sorceress out there who owns everything Thorn has ever wanted, she hungers even more for all she’s been denied.
When Rose and Thorn meet, the outcome is clear: only one sorceress can live out in the open and claim the prince’s loving hand . . .
Review:
I was sent a copy of Among the Thorns in exchange for an honest review.
While Among the Thorns sits within the Never the Roses series it is not a direct continuation of Oneira and Stearanos’ story. It is a continuation in time, but it instead follows Rose, Thorn, and Sebastien. Among the Thorns is very much a character-driven story and while I enjoyed it overall I definitely had my moments of not being sure how much I was enjoying the story.
Never the Roses sets the reader up to understand the magic systems of this world, and Among the Thorns does a great job of getting the reader back up to speed on how everything works, including the very important dream magic. It didn’t take long for me to remember what this magic could do, even if the fae of Oneira and Stearanos had been lost to time (until the book eventually reminded me).
Rose and Thorn are somewhat opposites. Rose attends a school where she is a very powerful Oneiromancer about to graduate, she struggles with friendships and is dedicated to her studies. Thorn lives with her caretaker in an isolated cottage with no access to the outside world, but she can glean memories from objects. We spend a good chunk of the book following both of these women as they go about their days and it feels like there isn’t much plot happening, but it is all being set up in the background.
While Among the Thorns is a romantasy I actually wasn’t all that into the romance in this one. There is a kind-of love triangle which resolves itself fairly quickly in the grand scheme of the book, and I found that the main romance was quite juvenile, and a little insta-love. While it does make sense as to how that happens and there’s an argument that it isn’t an ‘insta-love’, it never really got the growth that I wanted from the romance.
There’s a fairly dark plot behind everything going on in this book, and while it is somewhat complicated it is ultimately explained quite well, and even though I usually struggle with understanding schemes of this kind (so much so I avoid books with ‘court politics’) this seemed to be a decent exception to the rule.
I think Among the Thorns suffers a little bit with second book syndrome. The framework was all there but something about it just didn’t hit the same mark as Never the Roses. I will pick up the third book as I want to see how all of these characters intertwine and where the overarching plot is going.
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