It has been mere days in the world of Eon, where Rune Jenkins, her twin brother Ryker, and their friend Grey have been trapped, fighting for their lives. After discovering the truth of their ancestry, the three are far from home, and far from anything resembling their mundane lives of the past.
While Ryker is still held captive by the eerily beautiful Zio and her goblins, Grey falls into the clutches of Feena, the Fae queen. She begins to drain his soul bit by bit to feed her dark underground garden, and Grey has no hope of escaping on his own.
It is now up to Rune to save Grey, as his precious time slips away inexorably. But the Council has denied her permission to embark on a rescue mission, until she can harness her Venator gifts and prove herself capable of venturing into the Fae queen’s territory. As Rune discovers that promises in Eon are forged with life-or-death consequences, she realizes that she must act quickly, or else be swallowed and Grey along with her by the dangers of Eon.
Things have changed since the last novel. Rune and Grey disobeyed Dimitri in going to try and save a man’s family who had been kidnapped by werewolves. The council seem to want Rune and Grey to stay out of politics in the world, but Rune and Grey are too in touch with their emotions to stay out of these seemingly black and white issues.
Emotions have actually taken a large part of the series in this novel. Grey spends hours with a succubus learning how to control his emotions so that the council will allow him to remain a Venator. Rune doesn’t seem to go through the same emotional training, which I don’t quite understand as it seems in many scenes that she needs the training as well. The world seems to disagree on what the Venators should be, but it is known in the world that the Venators need to have control over their emotions so that they do not become fueled by hate and turn that hate against the people of their world. I have a love/hate relationship with this storyline, but that is mostly because I couldn’t understand who Rune and Grey should listen to for the majority of the novel. If the “villains” want them to mask their emotions, it would make sense for them to do so, but if the “good guys” also want them to mask their emotions then how powerful are a Venator’s emotions truly?
Ryker is introduced in the beginning of the novel, but he is not included in the majority of the story. Some chapters from the book are told from the perspective of side characters, but I was definitely shocked to hear from Ryker in this novel. He is definitely in this new world, but he is going through his own adventure. I could also kind of make sense of why everyone is so afraid of a Venator’s emotions from his point of view, as his blind rage towards the goblins terrified those around him.
The romance kicked up a notch in this story. I always assumed Grey and Rune were going to be together, but now, I am not so sure. And to be honest, I am happy about this! I would love for them to end up with characters that are from this world so that I get the chance to learn even more about how this world works from a more intimate perspective. I would even be able to learn about the side characters’ families in this way! But I’m not sure who Rune and Grey are going to end up with, so I am just going to wait patiently and see.
Overall this book was slightly less engaging than the first novel in the series in my mind, but I was still drawn into the world and the characters. I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a new YA fantasy series!
I received a copy of this book and this is my voluntary review.
Overall Rating: 3.5 out of 5 books
Ahh, I’d not heard of these books before but they sound so interesting and exciting. For some reason I actually love twins in fantasy novels. Great post!