Olivie Blake

The premise of this book, the universe, is fascinating. Such potential in a wide range of magical powers among humanity, with the most powerful leading the masses. The potential of a secret group with the power to direct the future is not a new concept, but I have yet to find satisfaction in its exploration in any literature I've read. Yet, this book was promising.

The prose, especially in reference to the Gothic setting of the Society's headquarters, is wonderful. Moreover, it's characters are incredibly complex both in their magical abilities and their personalities. So much of this book is spent trying to flesh them out through a variety of interactions. Unfortunately, the complexity of the characters and of the world and magic system made it difficult to achieve satisfaction in either in this first book of the series. I turned the last page of the book still wanting more, feeling like both nothing and everything happened, like I'd both lived a lifetime and a short afternoon walk with the characters, even as the plot started slowly unraveling. While I will still happily continue reading the series, I do think that some glorious potential remained for the book that unfortunately just wasn't achieved either by time or word-count or other challenges. If I could, I'd give this book 3.5 stars. I think it deserves that extra 0.5 points!… (más)