Review--Legends and Liars by Morgan Rhodes

 

This riveting sequel to Echoes and Empires sees Joss and Jericho team up with some of their greatest enemies—including two of the most powerful mages in the world—to bring an end to the queen’s empire of lies, from New York Times bestselling author Morgan Rhodes.

Josslyn Drake is in over her head—again. After fleeing the Queen’s palace with Prince Elian in tow, she’d hoped to finally find a way to solve both of their magical problems in one fell swoop, with the help of criminal-turned-ally Jericho Nox. But Valery, Jericho’s boss—and a notoriously powerful mage—has other plans.

It soon becomes clear that Valery can’t, or won’t, provide assistance. And with her relationship with Jericho more confusing than ever, Joss realizes that she’ll have to find her own way out of this magical mess, with or without help from those around her.

Amid high tensions, Joss sets out to learn to control the memory magic—along with her own natural powers. As the struggle between Lord Banyon and the Queen threatens the people Joss cares about, she stumbles onto hints of a monumental royal secret. Her unwanted power just might hold the answers she needs to solve all her problems—but she’ll have to work quickly, because the fate of an empire hangs in the balance.

 

Morgan Rhodes brings an exciting conclusion to the Echoes and Empires duology with Legends and Liars! It's always rough diving back into a series I started as an ARC and then had a delay in publishing for the next installment and then not getting an ARC of that one either! So to say I forgot some details is putting it mildly, but for the most part I was able to get back into the thick of things and go with the flow and I must say that this was an incredibly epic read!

Josslyn still has Banyon's memory magic trapped inside of her. Having the memories of the notorious magician and killer is heavy stuff, but Joss has been getting used to it even though Valery, Jericho's crime lord boss wants it out of her to sell to the highest bidder. Jericho is no longer pursuing the option of taking it from Joss anymore though. A lot has happened since the first book, Joss has learned she has a half brother, she learned that Banyon is in fact her true birth father and that he had been working with her father in trying to unearth the queen's dark secret.

There are many liars in this book, many secrets to be uncovered and revealed. It made for quite the shocking read! It seemed everywhere you turned someone had a deep dark secret that would eventually bring about earth shattering news! It was quite the rush!

For the most part, Joss is trying to uncover a deep dark secret that the queen has. Banyon is on the same page as well, and though they are not exactly working together, they are not working against one another either. And since Jericho wants to exact vengeance on Banyon for killing his parents years ago, tension runs thick in this one among these characters!

And speaking of tension, let's not forget the romantic tension running rampant between Joss and Jericho! I forgot how hot and cold Jericho ran in this series. One minute he's all in and the next he's backing away. I can never decide if I like the complexities that come with relationships in books or not! Like why can't they just be together, but then I also like that they aren't together right away! It's a conundrum for sure!

The pacing was definitely spot on! Having started this just before our power outage over the weekend, I lost major reading time because if I wasn't unbearably uncomfortable, it was too dark in the basement to read. So I had to pick and choose my spots near windows to get some daylight since I had to save the flashlight for after dark. I seemed to have gotten rid of all my reading lights from back in the day. You never think of these things until the power goes out, I swear! But anyway, back on topic, the pacing was spot on! It moved as such a nice pace that I found it easy to sink back into the story after taking a break here and there.

Morgan Rhodes is definitely a staple in the YA Fantasy world! If you haven't read her Falling Kingdoms series, I highly recommend that as well! That was an epic saga to be remembered for ages! Liars and Legends is a different kind of fantasy from that as there's bit of modernity mixed in. I forget what we call that, modern fantasy? But not what you would call Urban Fantasy, if you know what I mean! This was such a fun duology and since Rhodes wrote it, I pretty much recommend it! Anything with her name on it is pure gold!

Overall Rating 5/5 stars