Synopsis
The entire town of Eternity was shocked when widowed, middle-aged Twyla Banneker partnered up with her neighbor and best friend, Frank Ellis, to join the Tanrian Marshals. Eight years later, Twyla and Frank are still patrolling the dangerous land of Tanria, the former prison of the Old Gods.
Twyla might look like a small town mom who brings cheesy potatoes to funerals and whips up a batch of cookies for the school bake sale, but her rewarding career in law enforcement has been a welcome change from the domestic grind of mom life, despite the misgivings of her grown children.
Fortunately (or unfortunately) a recent decrease in on-the-job peril has made Twyla and Frank’s job a lot safer … and a lot less exciting. So when they discover the body of one of their fellow marshals covered in liquid glitter–and Frank finds himself the inadvertent foster dad to a baby dragon–they are more than happy to be back on the beat.
Soon, the friends wind up ensnared in a nefarious plot that goes far deeper than any lucrative Tanrian mineshaft. But as the danger closes in and Twyla and Frank’s investigation becomes more complicated, so does their easy friendship. And Twyla starts to realize that her true soul mate might just be the person who has lived next door all along…
Review
The first book in this series was really fun so I knew I had to continue soon. If you enjoyed the fantasy aspects of the first one, then definitely continue as well, as in my opinion this had a bigger focus on that than romance. Of course, there was still romance here eventually as well, but it was pretty slow and didn’t feature heavily until later on.
Personally, I did have some struggles with the characters as I was reading, though some of that can definitely be attributed to personal experiences to some extend. As a friend pointed out the title said, there is a lot of undermining going on, though much more of Twyla as a mother/caretaker than of Frank (who sometimes honestly felt more rude than the charming grumpy MCs we often love). I had such a hard time reading about Twyla being taken for granted, getting dismissed, not being listened to, and all those treatments mothers/wives/caretakers often have to endure. Since a lot of people really enjoyed this book, this might’ve just been me being sensitive about those things but I can’t help it. That still affected my enjoyment a lot, even if that was the whole point of the book.
The fantasy side of things was really fun though. In equal parts endearing, ridiculous, and exciting, I loved following along as these characters got to know the creatures they’d long thought extinct. While some of it was a bit predictable to me, that didn’t actually take anything away for me from this part of the book, because I thought it was good how it all played out.
Though I’ve heard that these books can be read in any order, I don’t think I agree with that. Are they stories that can technically stand on their own? Yes. But I think you’ll enjoy the fantasy aspect and the world building a lot more if you read them in the order they’re published! I really enjoyed how the world building built on what we already knew from the last book and that we didn’t need as much explaining any more.
Despite my personal struggles with this book of the series, I’m still really looking forward to the next one!
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