Last year I got into a really bad habit of not only buying pretty much every first book in a series that looked good to me, but oftentimes buying the sequel as well. That is what I did for this series. I was so convinced I would love it, I overcommitted. When I finally got around to reading the first book, Daughter of the Moon Goddess, in January, I had a tough time getting through it. Something about the pacing and the writing style did not hold my attention very well. This immediately made me nervous to read the sequel. These books were published very close together. There wasn’t enough time for her to grow much as a writer. So, even though I already owned a hardcover of this one, when I saw that the audio was on SCRIBD I decided to do it that way instead to see if it helped my attention span. And it did! I was much more easily able to get through this one, and in fact, I listened to it in about three days.
Natalie Naudus, the narrator, is good at her job.
Anyway, this is still a three and a half star book. The pacing issues were still there, even if I wasn’t experiencing problems with them because I was doing the audiobook. I also didn’t really feel much for any of the characters! The book expected me to be very invested in the love triangle, but I honestly could not care less. I thought one of the dudes was a drip, and the other was a dickhead. What caught my interest in this story the most was the various quests and explorations into Chinese mythology. I liked the bad guys a lot, they were sometimes the most interesting part. Also, she killed an obvious character to get that outrage going and it made me mad.
I will read future books by this author because there were a lot of things in here I found interesting and enjoyable, and hopefully the other stuff will get better with time.
(I sold both books, book two completely unread, on PangoBooks. Thank Jesus for PangoBooks, I would really be in the hole without it.)
[3.5 stars]