 |
| The House of Cats and Gulls by Stephen Deas |
The House of Cats and Gulls, the second book in the Dominion series, continues where the first left. Myla returns to her hometown to face her past before it can destroy the lives of her own and her found family. Orien, the mage, follows her to Deephaven—and has an inexplicable relationship with her. Worried for her, he calls Fings and Seth there too to save her.
Fings sees this as an opportunity to find his long-lost brother and Seth is about to face death for his forbidden magic, so it’s a timely request. For Fings, things are straightforward: rescue Myla and find his brother. For Seth, it’s a chance to learn more about the forbidden magic. Myla learns that others don’t value her self-sacrifice as much as she does, her family included. And it turns out Orien isn’t there for Myla after all.
This was at its heart Myla’s book. She was the reason everyone came to Deephaven and it was her need to set things straight that drove most of the plot. It was therefore unfortunate, that I didn’t feel that plotline at all. No matter what she did or didn’t do, she came across as single-minded and selfish. The people she wanted to save didn’t seem worth saving.
Seth’s path was more interesting, even if he kept making same stupid mistakes again and again, unleashing something he shouldn’t have. In the end, it was his book too, setting the stage for the next one. But my favourite was once again Fings. He’s resourceful, clever and loyal. Things didn’t go quite as he hoped, but he kept going, no matter what it took.
I liked this book maybe better than the first one. The plot was good, and it wasn’t filled with unnecessary stories of the empire’s past. The ending was open enough to make me want to read the next book too.
I received a free copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
No comments:
Post a Comment