Whitley’s review of A Book of Spirits and Thieves by Morgan Rhodes

Modern-day sisters discover deadly ancient magic in book 1 of this Falling Kingdoms spin-off series!

Worlds collide in this suspenseful, page-turning Falling Kingdoms spin-off series, which explores a whole new side of Mytica—and an even darker version of its magic.

Crystal Hatcher, Modern-day Toronto: It’s a normal afternoon in her mother’s antique bookshop when Crys witnesses the unthinkable: her little sister Becca collapses into a coma after becoming mesmerized by a mysterious book written in an unrecognizable language.

Maddox Corso, Ancient Mytica: Maddox Corso doesn’t think much of it when he spots an unfamiliar girl in his small village. Until, that is, he realizes that she is a spirit, and he is the only one who can see or hear her. Her name is Becca Hatcher, and she needs Maddox to help get her home.

Farrell Grayson, Modern-day Toronto: Rich and aimless Farrell Grayson is thrilled when the mysterious leader of the ultra-secret Hawkspear Society invites him into the fold. But when he learns exactly what he has to do to prove himself, Farrell starts to question everything he thought he knew about family, loyalty, and himself….

Fate has brought these young people together, but ancient magic threatens to rip them apart.

This book was unfortunate enough to piss me off in the first few pages, then didn’t change my mind. It probably would have been just a neutral sort of book, not really terrible but not really stellar, if only it hadn’t hit that one note right out the gate. It just soured the entire experience for me. That sour note was, of course, Farrell and his horrendous introduction.

Actually, I’m not sure it would have been a great book even without Farrell’s “using an unconscious woman as a prop to show off I (supposedly) have a good heart despite being a misogynistic pig” introduction. First of all, the story is split between three character POVs in three different places. Now, a multiple POV is not a bad thing, but when you’ve got multiple storylines to go with it? Still fine, so long as you’re writing a doorstopper. Because now you’ve got three arcs to go through, three intros, three rising actions, three conclusions, the whole shebang. Yes, two of those stories intersected, but not thoroughly enough to skimp on structure. Basically this book should have been three times longer than a normal one, but it wasn’t. Which means instead we got three very short and sparse stories in one book. Very little actually happened, and it felt even slower than it was because of having to read through, basically, the same part of a story three times over. It might be technically be new set-up when we switch from one character to another, but it’s still set-up, and we still feel it.

With that kind of structure, it was very hard to get sucked into any part of the story. Nothing was fleshed out enough to suck me in. There was potential for interesting shenanigans. Lord knows I love me some evil secret societies, and the Goddess in Maddox’s world was a fun villain. Well, she was kind of stock by herself, but her effect on the culture was kind of cool, especially with knowing how it all turns out since I read the other series. The characters were alright, although the love stories were…eh, the stockiest of stock YA, to be frank. There just wasn’t enough substance to anything for me to get excited about it. They were just ideas; fun to think about but that’s about it.

But let’s talk about Farrell. Or let’s not, because I don’t think there’s much to say besides I hate his face. I actually really liked his storyline. Under the mind control of a bad guy, doing bad things but thoroughly convinced he’s doing good. Because, ya know, mind control. That’s got to be fun to play with. But Farrell just made me want to punch his gonads every time he opened his mouth, because if you give a cool story to a buttface he’s still a buttface. He was like an amalgamation of every Bad Boy Trope I’ve ever seen, but with dialogue so clunky that at times it was painful to read. He was so pleased with his “charm,” and then I had to read what he thought was smooth talking and rolled my eyes so hard I thought I might burst a blood vessel.

So, yeah, good idea, but too little meat and Farrell needs to die. I won’t be continuing this series, though I will still be reading the Falling Kingdoms series.

Rating: 3 out of 5

This title is available from Razorbill.  You can purchase it here or here in e-format.