Ritual Income

(3.75) Magic, mystery, murder, and a slow-burn forbidden romance.

“Milla was the Witch of the Demesne, and the demesne made her more. It was a reservoir, an anchor, and a burden all at once.”

There are so many parts of this book I absolutely loved. The magic and mystery were definite strong points, but other parts left me feeling conflicted. Overall, the good outweighs the bad and I would definitely still recommend this book if the themes above appeal to you.

The Plot: There are multiple mysteries to unravel. Every single character is hiding something and I was dying to figure things out. The author does a great job of dropping clues in a way that gives you some of the information but leaves you wanting to know more. Some reveals were truly surprising. Some were telegraphed a little too clearly. I guessed the two biggest twists very early on, which lessened the impact of the big finale.

The Magic: There's a well established magic system with a deep history and competing power structures. For the most part you learn about things through experience although there is some info dumping in the beginning as things are set up. I did find a few minor parts confusing but it doesn't take away from the magic being one of the stronger parts of the book.

The Characters: Because everyone is hiding things, I feel like you don't get a true sense of Milla and Darkly until later in the book. Darkly came across as a little bland for me initially and it's not until he starts dropping the mask of control that I found him interesting. I admittedly didn't read Brown's other book that focuses on him, so maybe that would have changed things. Milla is incredibly judgmental early on and pretty selfish when it comes to her friends. It leaves her plenty of room for character growth and it plays in heavily to the plot, but it made me dislike her for a good chunk of the book. By the end I really came to respect how she stepped up and took ownership of her demesne and her own Way. Both of them are at their best when they're together, facing danger and embracing their true magic. They truly have the chance to shine as the plot progresses.

The Romance: A little bit of enemies to lovers, a little bit forbidden romance, and a slow burn with a splash of spice.

The Pacing: This was my biggest issue. The first half of the book reads very slow. There's a lot of setup needed and the pacing really gets bogged down with the details. Although there are scenes that piqued my interest early on, I didn't truly get excited about this book until the 50% mark. The plot is at it's strongest when Milla is tending her demesne and using her magic, and you don't get much of that early on, but the momentum builds quickly once things start happening.

The MLM portion of the book was a lot more prominent than I expected from the summary. There's a lot of info dumping with how uplines and downlines work which I found boring. I'll admit, I'm already familiar with the controversy surrounding MLMs but I think it would still be over explained even for someone with zero knowledge. At one point the word ‘upline' was used four times in the span of a paragraph. A lot of this detail is what slowed things down for me in the first half.

The Writing: There's a lot of repetition with dialogue/descriptions/thoughts. Not a dealbreaker for me, but noticeable throughout. A lot of foreign language used in connection with the magic that is sometimes explained and other times not. Also Darkly is Scottish and is written with a heavy accent throughout the book, to a point where it almost became distracting. I can normally tolerate that so if that bothers you even in the slightest, this is going to be too much.

Overall: The first half is a flat three stars for me but the second half is 4+ and more than made up for it. I really think it pays off in the end. The story is exciting, and mysterious, and action packed, so if you're willing to push through in the beginning there's so much to look forward to.