//published 2013//
So it’s taken me a while to get to this second book in the Lynburn Legacy, which was a little distressing because I freaking adored the first book in the trilogy, Unspoken. ***Please note that there may be some spoilers for the first book in this review. Nothing crazy, though.***
In the meanwhile, I read two short stories that Brennnan published between these two books. The Spring Before I Met You is a glimpse into Jared’s life before he moved to England and met Kami in person. It was really fun to get a little bit more into Jared’s head, as I feel like we don’t get enough of him in the actual books.
We switch to Kami’s perspective in The Summer Before I Met You, and I could not stop laughing while I was reading this short story that delves into that whole “cricket camp scandal” thing that is mentioned in the beginning of Unspoken. It was funny and interesting and gave some more depth to the friendship between Kami and Angela, as well as a better concept of how Kami has gone her whole life talking to Jared in her head.
However, there is a third short story, The Night After I Lost You that I simply cannot find. The links I’ve found for it no longer work, but the reviews I’ve read said that this is a really good follow up to the end of Unspoken, and I would really like to read it so if anyone knows where it can be found, or even if you have the pdf and are willing to email it to me… that would be fantastic!
In the meantime, I went ahead and delved into Untold. While I didn’t enjoy this second book as much as the first, and felt like it did suffer from moderate second-book syndrome, it was still an engaging and interesting read, and did a fairly good job of moving things forward from book one, and setting things up for the final showdown in book three.
This book definitely had more angst than the first book, and to my perspective it took a lot longer for Kami and Jared to have an actual conversation than it should have. It really frustrates me when everyone’s problems are based around the fact that they haven’t bothered to sit down and exchange the three sentences that it would take to straighten out their issues. I know that a lot of it was because of the mean things Jared said at the end of Unspoken, so Kami was scared to talk to him, but still. Please.
There was also a little too much time spent on the sexual orientation questions of a couple of characters. Like basically you have these evil sorcerers who are planning to take over your whole village, but we spent a lot of time with Kami contemplating her feelings towards Jared and Ash, watching Jared thunder around like a spoiled stormcloud, and listening to Angela and Holly wonder if they have feelings for each other, and I just felt like worrying about so many feelings in the face of imminent death made the whole imminent death thing seem like it wasn’t that real.
And to me, that was the second-book syndrome part of this story – a lot of filler time focused on feelings and not enough actually getting something done. Don’t get me wrong, I still love every character in this book, and I totally enjoyed reading it, but I had a lot more eye-rolling moments in this book than I did during the first.
Also, I understand Kami’s dad being upset about everything, but if her parents don’t work through their issues and get back on the same page by the of book three, I am going to be seriously ticked off, because their marriage made me SO happy in the first book.
All in all, a solid 4/5. A good progression to the series, and enjoyable read on its own (despite extra angst), and I am totally anticipating the conclusion to the series.
The Aroma of Books 