Bound

Bound
Benedict Jacka


CAWPILE SCORE
C-9
A-8
W-8
P-9
I-9
L-9
E-10
TOTAL-8.86/10

Wow, what an start, middle and ending. Lots I didn't predict and lots I did. For having read this I remembered very little. I was clearly wrong when talking about the last book thinking more time had gone on than actually had. Great changeup to the writing style. Loved where the story went. Good foreshadowing.
CAWPILECharactersAlex and Anne, Just tell her how you feel Alex!!I feel like it's a small backtrack for vari's character that he is obsessed again, with just attacking. But he had good Alex-Anne adviceRichard—Jinn whats the goal mysterious as everLuna-Backslid because of a loss of direction. And depression loss of selfworth.Rachel-thought we were making some good progress til the end and maybe we are.Atmosphere/SettingGetting the Shadow dimension is a nice thing. Alex spending more time in the council.WritingInteresting writing, breaking it out into months. Good technique. Lots of foreshadowing that its Anne not Alex. PlotAlex has to work as Morden's aide, and perform odd jobs with “Archon”. Tasked with getting a dreamstone, gets 2 . can't train with it. Morden's council attack sneak attack on Vault. Anne bonds a Jinn InvestmentLogicThe tricks that they pull. Morden attacking the council. Deleo and her let Alex dieTemporary loss of magic from Richard at lightbringer and at Verus.????!!!EnjoymentLoved every minute of it.Misc“Lightbringer and Zilean” talking about why nobody trusts the council. How many are truly loyalAnne's TortureRichard has Untyped?? Black magic. Some dark mages aren't as bad cinder, chaliceLuna restarting Arcana EmporiumALEX is ACTING JUNIOR COUNCIL MEMBERAlex's temptation to go full dark. History of Genie's in the lampThe snark. I love it. What am I supposed to do while I'm experiencing this honor.Zilean – it wasn't personal. Its always personal to someone
I will be talking about it on Libromancy https://libromancy.podbean.com/ on 08/07/22

The focus this time around is more on the politics of the Council, with Verus taking part in a series of missions that he doesn't really know the reasons for. Fortunately, the world-building is as excellent as usual, and the story moves on at quite a fast pace. In a sense, we're just moving from one part of the story to the next here, but it's written well enough, and there are enough interesting scenes along the way that it works rather better than one might expect. And we end, once again, on a cliffhanger.

Pretty good book, too much time between the previous one and this one meant that I had missed a few things form the previous book. All in all it was a good read, I blazed through it, and I am even now more on edge as to how the emotions between Alex and Anne are going to pan out - exciting stuff.

I just hope it doesn't take such a long time for the next book to come out.