Previous book here. This book takes place eight years after the last one.
Kate's daughter Julie has had A LOT OF CHANGES over the years since we last saw her. It's a long list:
- Turned 18.
- Got fed up on waiting around for her long time crush, Derek, to come around and want to be with her, so she left.
- Ran off with her "grandmother" (guess who) to the West Coast to set up a new kingdom of New Shinar and has gotten very well schooled in being a princess.
- Fought a regenerating bad guy, Moloch, so as to prevent him from murdering Kate, as is told he shall via prophecy.
- He took her eye, she took his and stuck it in her face...which caused her to have a drastic magical physical makeover. New Shinarian face, three inches taller, smells different, the works. Her memories and magic are the same, but even Julie doesn't know herself any more.
- Changed her name to Aurelia Ryder.
Julie hasn't seen Kate and Curran since her metamorphosis, and she's warned by her psychic friend not to see them unless she can thwart the prophecy. She returns to Atlanta to look into the murder of a good preacher who presumably had contact with a bad object, and poses as a member of the Order to do so. She rescues (or tries to) street kids, she checks on people, and she wonders what the heck is going on with Pack dynamics.
And then there's Derek, who just came back to town after a metamorphosis of his own: changed his name, moved to Alaska, became a lot less of a loner, we'll put it that way. This whammies Julie/Aurelia emotionally, but she can't let on, right?
Anyway, this is a quick, rollicking but intense magical mystery, though she's just getting started on thwarting the bad guy...I really enjoyed this overall. Figuring out New Julie/Aurelia--someone who's very comfortable with the whole Shinar thing and hanging around with her magical elder relatives is pretty intense change. I enjoyed her snark about her dagger and the name of it, though that seemed pretty Kate-ish too!
I admit the one thing I feel like it's missing here (other than Kate and Curran, but there's reasons for them) is that I do kind of wish this new spinoff series did tell in more detail what Julie got up to in the last 8 years. There's enough exposition for you to get the drift, and for whatever reason the end of the book has several scenes explaining how Julie got from A to Z, but I'd read a prequel because man, JULIE HAS HAD SOME CHANGES. The whole "I am a princess of Shinar" dynamic is a huge change for her. She's generally sure of herself and good at scheming, and finds it uh....well, it's a challenge to interact with people that she used to know and whether or not they figure it out.
I also wanted more Derek. There's finally some conversation about their feelings and life choices towards the end and I enjoyed/related to that, but for now it feels like that's going to be ....spaced out. Since this book has become an online hit, we'll get more of it, thank goodness. I always rooted for them to get together and I think it's time. Also, what's with his life choices of late? Gotta find out.
Four stars.