Review--Carving Shadows Into Gold by Brigid Kemmerer

 

Dangerous magic. Fateful choices. Broken promises.

The King's Courier Tycho has made a treacherous bargain. Now beholden to the magical scraver who saved King Gray's life, one false move could end everything.

Jax escaped his life in Briarlock and traveled with Tycho to Emberfall. But life outside his small village brings unexpected challenges--and unlikely adversaries.

After years of hating the royal family and their magic, Callyn never expected to be at the Queen's side, with magic on her fingertips. But at the royal court, she can't trust anyone--including the man she thought she loved.

Cast apart, Tycho, Jax, and Callyn must learn to wield the magic that is dividing their kingdom. As the magical scravers attack from the north and the king's rivals gain strength, time is running out.

War is looming. Love is tested. And magic could be the only answer. . .

It's always treacherous to pick up a sequel many years after you read the first book and that's the danger I encountered with Carving Shadows Into Gold by Brigid Kemmerer. I had my notes and summaries, but it's still been over three years since the first book released and I know it was because she was writing her Defy the Night trilogy and that's all fine and good, seriously, it is! Loved that one! But for me it became a struggle to dive back into this one and remember all the minuet details that I didn't quite note and just readjusting to this world.

Tycho and Jax are in a new relationship and things are fresh and budding and all that new romance jazz. But then Tycho is being sent to Rhen's kingdom and thus putting the young couple into a kind of jeopardy. I don't know if it was because these two were pretty much separated the entire book, I found I couldn't really get into their romance. I found their chapters to be a bit boring because it really became them missing the other amid other bits of chaos.

Then we have Callyn, along with her sister Nora who are ladies to Queen Lia Mara and are basically her daughter's caretakers. This is a somewhat fun job for Nora and Callyn doesn't mind it either. Callyn is struggling to cope with that she may in fact have magical abilities, while working in a kingdom that abhors magic. Trying to keep that a secret is harder than she thought it would be.

I'll admit other parts of this book kind of dragged for me. I don't know what it is about fantasy reads and why they must always be super long. You just know a few 100 of those hundreds of pages are going to be nonsense and have nothing really happen at all. I felt like we had too much downtime with Tycho and downtime with Jax. Like there wasn't anything really happening where they were at. Yes, stuff did happen, but I felt like 80% of it might have just been downtime and nothing was really helping to move forward.

I felt like there was more going on with Callyn and her part of the world, but yet, we rarely spent time with her. I found her chapters to be the most interesting and the tension that continued to grow between her and Alek. It was intense! Not sure if it was because we got to see these two interact more than we did Tycho and Jax, but yeah. I lived for Callyn's chapters!

There were still spots of romance for the characters as well. Things kept getting intense for Tycho and Jax in their respective kingdoms, and since they were apart, that's saying something! I kept wondering what sort of love shape we'd be entering and well, I'll let you formulate your own opinions on that! Meanwhile, Callyn and Alek continue their dance of "will they, won't they?" And it was entertaining to say the least and things are left in a dicey predicament.

I felt like pacing wise things were really bogged down in this one. There didn't feel like much was happening for most of the book. Every once in awhile, something exciting popped up but that was about it. This really felt like that dreaded "middle book" of a trilogy that gives us mixed emotions. The ending once again leaves things up in the air for all the concerned characters and what it's leading to is the grand finale we've been waiting for! Truly hoping the third book will be more exciting like the first book was. 

All in all, Carving Shadows Into Gold was just an okay read, I feel like. To me, it just felt very middle like. The pacing was slower than I would've liked and it just felt hard to get back into between the starting and stopping. But it was still enjoyable at times and I definitely plan to read the next book to see how it all ends. I just kind of had higher hopes for this one.

Overall Rating 2.5/5 stars--again, I want to point out that on my rating system I am saying this book was slightly better than just okay. I hate how we somehow just live by the Zon's standards when it comes to ratings. This one was okay, but had moments of greatness, but I can't fully say that I "liked" it full-heartedly.