Review--The Darkest Magic by Morgan Rhodes

In the second installment of New York Times bestselling author Morgan Rhodes's highly acclaimed Falling Kingdoms spin-off series, danger looms and the mystery deepens as two warring evils vie for possession of one elusive, powerful book.

Modern-day Toronto: Sisters Crystal and Becca Hatcher are reunited after reclaiming the Bronze Codex and narrowly escaping death. They have no one to trust but each other, and the only thing keeping them safe is the book that sent Becca's spirit to Ancient Mytica--the same book that their enemies would kill them for.

Ancient Mytica: Maddox grapples to keep his newly discovered powers under control, while the ruthless goddess Valoria hunts him down.

Modern-day Toronto: Farrell embraces his dark side as he unwittingly falls further under the spell of Markus, the mastermind leader of the nefarious Hawkspear Society, who will stop at nothing to find Crys and Becca--and the remarkable book in their possession.

New York Times bestselling author Morgan Rhodes takes readers into exhilarating new high-fantasy territory with volume two of the Book of Spirits and Thieves series, an epic contemporary saga perfect for fans of Sarah J. Maas and Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander.

After a much too long wait—but considering the final book is still over a year away, I may have read it TOO soon—I’ve finally read Morgan Rhodes’ The Darkest Magic, the second book in the Spirit and Thieves trilogy, which is the prequel series to our beloved Falling Kingdoms. Once again, I dove into this one with no memory of the first book—yet again I couldn’t find a recap anywhere and just did my best to dive in! And luckily, I feel like I was able to follow along fairly well. Better than most other books it would seem. And let me tell you, this book was pure magic! It was exciting and captivating and OMG I NEED THE NEXT ONE NOW!!!!!!

Life hasn’t exactly turned back to normal for Crys and Becca now that Becca is out of her coma like state and is back in reality. Things are pretty chaotic! Farrell is still under Markus’ thumb, Jackie is determined to kill him and possibly vice versa. The book has some sort of magical effect on Becca that’s positively dangerous and Markus still wants it no matter the cost. Lives will be lost. Destruction will reign. Oh, and there also seems to be a new enemy is town who’s even more unsavory than Markus! We’re talking zero morals at all! And that’s not even mentioning the trouble in Mythica that Maddox and Barnabas are dealing with in regards to Valoria!

Needless to say this book was pretty chaotic, but I loved every single moment of it! Chaos reigns…and it’s definitely a most entertaining time! This time around (or possibly last time, but if so then I totally misread my review!) we have four points of view, which are Maddox, Becca, Crys, and Farrell, I can’t remember if this was the same way as the previous book as I read that way too long ago. And if you’re a reader who fears multiple points of view, never fear! For while it may seem scary—which considering her other series has more, four is a piece of cake—it’s really easy to change points of view back and forth! I mean there are times when I get upset to leave one view and cross into another, but by the end of the chapter, the process repeats itself all over again! And since this time 3/4 view points are in the same world, there’s no extra confusion with crossing dimensions!

For a while in this book, it seems as if we’re just reading about events in two different worlds but a connection is definitely established more firmly in this one (Again, maybe it was still established in the first one but again I sooo can’t remember that! Lol). While nothing is concrete just yet, there are these little hints and things that are happening. The ball is being sent into motion and we’re definitely going to have an explosive and amazing book to come next year. I am only saddened that it will bring this series to a conclusion.

The main goals of this one involves Becca and Crys trying to keep the Codex away from Markus and Farrell while they are trying to get it back. Farrell has been give orders as well to kill Crys and then of course we have the new big bad in town who is someone from Markus’ past who has no shame in killing to get what he wants. He’s definitely one of the scariest bad guys I’ve ever met!

It always amazes me how much information Morgan can weave into her books and never have it feel too overwhelming. There have been many times where other authors attempt to do this and I do feel rather lost and confused. Perhaps the execution wasn’t quite right in those instances, but Morgan is on the ball with this method! We learn quite a bit in the 426 pages that make up this book and I would’ve happily read another 300 more pages and never batted an eye about it! The pacing was so on par! There never really seems to be a dull moment. Everything just escalates from one level of amazing to another! It’s the prefect kind of read!

There wasn’t as much romance in this one either. I feel like last time we had this situation too. There’s of course the unlevelled amount of tension between Farrell and Crys. Not only is Farrell still in some sort of relationship with the girlfriend his family approves of, but obviously Farrell and Crys fall on opposing sides when it comes to the magical book. And since Crys is an enemy by proxy to Markus, he orders Farrell to kill her. You can naturally assume how that resolves. Farrell is a stubborn sort of guy despite how loyal he is to Markus. Then of course we have the star-crossed lovers, Maddox and Becca, but they are once again worlds away from each other. But that doesn’t stop the bizarre dreams and other whatnots that occur!

The ending to this one was pure shocking! Again, I am kicking myself for choosing to read this one NOW when I still have 365+ PLUS days until the final book! I really, really should know better by now since Morgan holds no bounds when it comes to cliffhangers. I can only hope my tears truly do feed her muse! Lol! The ending was pure shocking and it’s definitely setting the ball rolling at a fast clop into next year’s exciting conclusion to the series. I positively cannot wait to read it either! I live for these magical worlds that Morgan creates and reading them is a trip I never quite get over! What I will do with myself once both series come to an end next year I haven’t the faintest idea. No good will come from it, that’s for sure!

If you haven’t read Morgan’s books yet, I would highly recommend that you do for both series are made of magical awesomeness that are meant to be devoured page by page! Better yet, as I said, both series conclude by the end of next year, so a binge reading could be in your future if you make the right choice (Nudge, nudge)! While I do love reading a series book by book, year by year, there is nothing more satisfying than having a series binge available! As a side note as well, you can read either of these series without reading the other—though why you would want to I couldn’t explain, lol—but as always I would HIGHLY recommend reading them both because you will not regret it at all!


Overall Rating 5/5 stars