Not my favorite in the series, but there was good payoff in the last 30% of the book. If I didn’t like this series so much and wasn’t so invested in the characters, I probably wouldn’t have finished this book. But, I do, and I am, and I sure hope the next (and last) book in the series is packed with all the things I love about it.

Why 3 stars, with such a lukewarm reaction? Because I can’t bring myself to rate it lower. There was way too much explaining and traveling for me, and I don’t like it when Rule and Lily aren’t interacting and working together. I did like getting so much of Grandmother in this book, and Gan’s continued soul growth and path to understanding what it means to have friends was sweet.

Here’s hoping the last book isn’t long in coming and that it’s a whiz-bang finale to the series. ( )

Ok, if you love this series, and you want to know what happens after/before the cliffhanger of the last book, read this book. If you like philosophical musings on integrity and other human concepts, and some very interesting realm changes and wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff read this book. Otherwise, well, I don't think it would make any sense at all outside of the series, and you have to really like the characters to be able to put up with the relatively slow pacing. It's complicated, so slow pacing works, but it's also by far not may favorite book in the series, for all there are some interesting implications that open up based on the revelations of this book. ( )

Review This will be part review and part rant.

For those who are wondering if and when there will be another book -( The Codex The Codex (World of the Lupi, #15) by Eileen Wilks from reading her Facebook page, I sincerely doubt it. It has been three years since this book, and the author has several reasons why she is not writing. One is along the line of what the Andrews team is claiming about their next The Iron Covenant Series book. I call it general ennui or pure laziness. But that's me, and I'm no author. I just know that I would be very much indebted to those who have stayed with a series like this one that eventually turned into a mess of filler, a myriad of introspection, and several cliffhangers.

Please check out the sixth post down for more information: https://www.facebook.com/eileenwilks

We had already know where the Codex is and who has it. Why the need to drag this on? (read the novella - Originally Human (World of Lupi, #1.5) by Eileen Wilks ) Although the end of this book finally delves into this issue. Sort of...at the end.
Why do we need such improbable and complex scenarios? I can only suspend my disbelief so far before the cord breaks.

Adding insult to injury, entire paragraphs are copied and pasted from early in the book to later chapters. I can see why Ms. Wilks did this, what with the space/time issue, but still. This is unacceptable to me.

The story is interesting enough; bloody and scary and deadly, but written as if the author doesn't care. Part of the problem is that I think Ms. Wilks is starting to believe that what she is writing is real life. This can be both good or bad. In this case, it adds a lot of detail that most people don't need to keep them avidly and eagerly reading.

All in all, this isn't a terrible read, but it IS a supremely tedious book. It takes about 3/4 of the novel to get interesting.

We know that there is supposed to be another book, but will it be worth it if it is written like the last two or three novels? ( )

84 points/100 (4.25 stars/5).

After the chaos at the end of Dragonmark, everyone is split up, there are enemies everywhere, and children to save.

While we pick up right where the cliffhanger left us, somehow it still takes at least 20% of this book to start. It was probably about 30% in when it finally got to the damn point. There was a lot of hurry up and wait. The whole book was essentially hurry up and wait until the last 30 minutes where everything happens at once.

The good thing is this doesn't end in a cliffhanger and it adequately resolves what happened in the last book. It also hopefully wraps up a plot I was afraid was going to stick around for another 5 books. We get a lot of world-building in this book, too. I was pretty ambivalent to the end of the book, though.

This book just highlights how little consequences there are in this series. Bad things happen to everyone involved. There is just no follow-through, follow-up, whatever you want to call it. And by the end, everything works out fine (except for the redshirts). It is actually starting to get on my nerves. You play in the deep end, you accept the consequences, otherwise get out. ( )