Synopsis
With the sexy and arrogant Mage Lord pressuring me to join his team and a dark movement in the magical underworld threatening to ignite a war between the half-faeries and other supernaturals, I have my work cut out.
Especially when a serum that’s deadly to half-faeries finds its way onto the market, luring in its victims with the promise of immortality.
To find the source of the lies, I have to go undercover to a dangerous magical contest where half-faeries compete for glory. Problem is, to get in, I have to pretend to be one of them.
Navigating my way between half-faeries who want my head on a platter and the Mage Lord who wants, well, me, is tricky enough. But then I learn something about my own magic that changes the playing field. If I don’t come out on top, a second faerie apocalypse is on the horizon.
Review
As I grabbed the 1-3 box set on audio and loved Faerie Blood (read book 1’s review here), I decided to roll right on through to the next one. The narration is fantastic, I really feel like it embodies the character and the first person POV so well!
Ivy officially agrees to employment with the mages, still butting heads with the overly handsome Mage Lord. And while not so much time has gone by, the anger between fae is heating up again. The half-faeries seem to do their level best to piss off just about everyone, and worse, now there’s some kind of potion that sets them all into an unbreakable rage. To find the source, Ivy will have to go undercover, risking life and limb to once again stop an all-out war.
Right off the bat the mystery and magic starts up all over again. This serum that turns the fae-kind into rabid monsters of themselves was an interesting twist to the story. It allowed the author to play into the half-faeries biggest fear, a mortal life. And as the serum promises immortality, it’s understandable how up in arms they were to get their hands on it. To them it’s a matter of life and death—as they literally view living a normal lifespan to be a curse—and unfortunately some of them might just actually die in the process. I will say that as they are almost all shown to be stuck-up, incredibly full of themselves people, it’s a little hard to care. Ivy shows them zero sympathy too, but she can’t just stand by and do nothing!
To get to the bottom of things, Ivy must infiltrate and investigate from within. She hears that the winner of a faerie-only competition is being given the serum as a prize, so what does any intelligent woman with an overprotective boss do? She enters herself as a fighter. The only problem is her appearance. I enjoyed that the author gave readers some different kinds of magic throughout this one, and that included magically altering Ivy’s appearance. Making her seem like a different person kind of reminded me of M. J. Kuhn’s Among Thieves and her character that is a disguise expert, though here it’s Ivy’s witch roommate and best friend. The actual fights themselves kind of brought to mind Spider-man’s cage fight in the first Raimi movie, but it is virtually a magical fight club. And just remember, nothing is as simple as it seems.
Overall this one does feel kind of side-mission like, and although it seems faerie war is always on the line here, the fight club felt like lower stakes. Which, truly, is not necessarily a bad thing, especially as this one is a second novel and not the finale, but it’s just something to keep in mind. Ivy continues to be snarky, combative, and overall a little unpleasant, but the romantic tension with the Mage Lord will have you smacking your head. If enemies (or reluctant professionals?) to lovers is your thing, I’m telling you it’s incoming! Onto book three.
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