You know what this series didn't need? A love square. You know what this series has now? A love square.
I beg your brief indulgence so I can do a shipping rant, which I'll put behind a spoiler tag for decency's sake. Feel free to skip it if you want. |Asher already had a perfectly good love interest, Elle, from the first book. I ship it. They'd make a lovely couple. I wasn't shipping Meleya with anyone, because she's not a shipping sort of character, and she and Asher would be a terrible couple. In my opinion. But if she has to end up with anyone, it should be Brigan, who provides the fourth point of this love square by being politically betrothed to Elle. I see no chemistry between Meleya and Brigan, but there's also no chemistry between Meleya and Asher, and this would at least get Brigan out of the way of the only ship I actually care about|. Potato soup.
...ahem. Sorry about that. Let's get on with the actual review, shall we?
Our two protagonists' paths finally cross in this book, much to the delight of me who wanted more Asher. He is somewhat less funny in this book, probably because things are getting more serious now. Unkillable demon ghost things don't lend themselves to humor the way escaping and/or trolling the Mage Hunters does.
Yeah, the Grey Ones are back, and they're overpowered. So far they don't die except by eating each other, and they can make the people they possess more powerful. And there's no real way to get rid of them if they decide they want to possess you, as |Meleya discovers|; you just have to keep telling them "no" forever. Their two semi-weaknesses seem to be dream ghosts (like the ghosts of Meleya's dragon's dead sibling or |Asher's mom|) and lightwielding magic, but neither of those actually kill them, and their effectiveness is inconsistent.
And |they killed off Lothar|! How dare they, |he was the only semi-decent villain we had left|! Which is probably why |he had to go out in a heroic sacrifice|, because |a Comic Relief Villain wasn't going to fit into the villain team as it's shaping up. Or into the tone of the story, for that matter; it's getting rather dark|. But it's a shame; |I was starting to honestly rather like him|.
Oh, I suppose the Grey Ones do have another weakness: ancient magic anti-Grey-One wards that the ancient supermages set up around important places. But those don't really count, because we can't make more of them.
I'm not actually sure who or what this book's title is referring to.
Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: T for fantasy violence.
4 stars.
(Endnote: This universe has a dream realm. Hollow Knight also has a dream realm. They are not the same place, but it did give me a crossover idea.)
!I reckon, because I want it to be fair, that 'Dragon Hunter' is referring to Vidya. She's a pretty major part of it, as I recall, and then we don't have two books named after Meleya and only one named after Asher. (The Asher fan in me would object to that.) And anyway, as the Black Valkyrie, Vidya is a lot more of a Mage Hunter than Meleya is. So book one is Asher, book two is Meleya, book three is Vidya, and book four is Jax. And book five isn't anybody, as far as I can tell.
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