Oh, great. I enjoyed this so much more than The Black Tides of Heaven. It was great to have Mokoya's POV and have time to get to know her in ways not possible in the previous novella. There is coping with grief, wonderful relationships, monster-hunting, and even more world-building. I'm glad I've discovered this series! ( )

for a 200-ish page book, this has a denseness in it that made it a sludge of a read for me...not that it was a super serious kind of read, but somehow i'm not able to immerse myself into the Tensorate world as much as I usually would other fantasy worlds...it has a flatness to it, too, such that the reveals and twists do not land with the intended impact (to me anyway)

that said, its well written enough, and enjoyable (otherwise, i think i will just dnf the whole series). besides, the series has very intriguing premises; the Tensorate world is weird but in an almost folklore-futuristic flavour (with flying light crafts and dinosaurs running around); and this second volume has a better mystery at its heart, and also a more satisfying ending, than the first.

plus, i adore the the cover art of all four books! that alone will always earn it a half-star ^_^ ( )

As soon as I finished The Black Tides of Heaven, I knew I was gonna read this novella soon because that world is magical and I didn’t wanna forget it so soon. And this book turned out to be even more impressive.

This time the plot had no time jumps, actually it takes place within just a few days but the amount of extensive world building we get here alongwith a deep dive into the different interpretations of the magic system, is amazing and I couldn’t stop reading at all. We also get gorgeous descriptions of magical creatures and I particularly loved two of them so much. In such few pages, we also get some jaw dropping action sequences and I was trying to picture them in my head but that turned out to be impossible.

This time we get Mokoya’s POV and after the events of the first book, it was quite painful to share her grief. This story is essentially about debilitating grief, feeling as if there is no point in being alive, but also finding the courage to try to live again when opportunity presents itself. The development of feelings between Mokoya and Rider might feel like instalove but it’s so beautifully written that I was completely invested and my heart was breaking towards the end. I just kept wishing that I could read more of them being together.

In the end, this may be a small novella but it has a lush and vivid world, an intricate magic system, and a gorgeous story of love in all forms. I can’t believe I’m so late in reading this series but I’m not gonna wait longer to finish the remaining two novellas. ( )

This is a strong second book in the series, which doesn't feel quite as rich as Black Tides but does advance the story nicely and draws Mokoya more fully than she had a chance to be drawn in Black Tides.

Note that Tor markets this as a co-first book in the series, but I think it's much better to start with The Black Tides of Heaven. I read this with a book club who hadn't all read Black Tides yet, and many of us ended up putting this one aside to read that first, and enjoying this one more after. ( )

Fun. Enjoyed the magical beasts. I felt like it didn't explore a few of its big ideas very well--souls connected to other creatures, how exactly it is that the prophecies can be "disproven"--and even with the background from "Black Tides", I wasn't drawn in to the characters very much. Definitely lots of cool stuff going on here; may just take more pages to click for me. ( )