I wanted to like this book, I really did! I loved the first one so much that I immediately bought the sequel upon completion. At the end of the day, it just felt like this series should have been one stand alone novel. Part of my frustration with the Skyworld books may also stem from the factor that I personally don’t count a duology as fitting into the category of a “book series”, but I can allow that this could just be my own problem in defining a series as holding more than three books in a particular world setting. There is still a part of me hoping that this story magically has a continuation, but being that there was an epilogue in Blood Secrets that’s more of a pipe dream than anything.
Was everything about this book awful? Absolutely not! Busse still writes with a great balance of detail and action. The characters are still very entertaining and intelligent, which is a huge pull for me because I despise characters making dumb decisions just because the author doesn’t know how to move the plot forward otherwise. There was a section within this book in which there could have been a “miscommunication trope” where keeping a secret could have made for undue drama later on, but thankfully Busse avoided that. The dialog is still well written and I continue to love the world setting of these stories.
Where this book fell apart for me was the story pacing, the forced resolutions, and dangling plot threads. Without dipping into spoiler territory, there were at the very least two large mysteries alluded to multiple times in the first book that were completely forgotten in the second. Beyond that there were a number of other conflicts that were hinted at in the first book which were either resolved in a passing comment or just simply pushed aside for a focus on the romance based story arch. The ending of the book itself just fizzled out in an incredibly lackluster resolution. Oddly enough, a story based on a new take with zombies did very little focusing on the actual zombies (aka Turned). Being that I tend to despise zombie stories I feel it’s telling when I feel the book could have done with more Turned interactions.
Once more I’ll state that Busse as a writer isn’t awful, because even though these things fell flat and just fell into place too pristinely the characterizations weren’t bad and there was a thread of logic of how things progressed in the way they did. In the end it just really felt that the intensity and proper denouement could have been maintained if this duology had been reworked into a singular novel. Perhaps it was an issue with the publishing house not being willing to release a longer standalone novel and so there was pressure to split it into two?
There is much more I could say, but at the end of the day I don’t like to do much in regards to tearing down another author’s work. After all, as reviews go, this is simply just my opinion, and based on the reviews on Amazon it’s received it appears my take on the story isn’t the prevalent stance. That doesn’t mean I throw out my own view, but I do want to leave things open for you as readers to come to your own conclusion on the matter – hence a lack of spoilers in this review.
In the end, I still stand by my first review of book one – Secrets in the Mist – being a very well written piece.
What are your thoughts? If you think I’m way off base that’s totally fine. In the end, even in disappointment, I want to remind it is good to express ourselves with kindness.