After a their last mission turned into chaos, Hidden Government chaser Kam and her friends must hunt and recapture souls. Seventeen, to be precise. But by the time they chase down the a goblin soul, a banshee gets assassinated, leaving their progress at negative one. The connection between the goblin and her banshee? A cosplay club. Because sometimes monsters like to pretend to be humans dressing up as monsters. As the body count rises and the Hidden cosplayers point fingers at each other, it’s up to Kam and her team to stop the insanity. One costumed faction has a secret they’re not sharing—even with each other—and if the bad seed isn’t found soon, the others are likely to be murdered…or worse.
First things first is that I didn’t realise this was a second book when I requested it from NetGalley. Yes I know I do this a lot. But luckily, Naquin writes well enough that you get pulled into the story and caught up with the characters pretty fast. The only thing I found it was missing was an explanation of how the magic systems works for Djinns like Kam. We probably got 2 or 3 sentences about it, but I felt like I was missing some facts which were probably explained in the first book. And if it wasn’t explained then it should have been.
I found the rest of the world building to be great. We learnt there’s more than just the human world, you have djinn worlds, demon worlds etc. I’d love for other books in this series to explore away from the human world a bit. We also got to meet multiple types of creatures throughout the investigation. First of all, there’s djinn which I rarely find in books, there’s centaurs, small fey and also human sized elves. We even have leprechauns. So there’s a lot going on and as you can tell, I love a good mix of magical creatures.
The mystery off the book is also really good. I was really intrigued as to who was killing these cosplayers. At one point you think ‘oh yes I know who did it’ but you still don’t quite know who this person is. The biggest problem with this book is that it’s not exactly memorable. I’m writing this review about two weeks after reading, and I had to reread the synopsis to remember what happened in the book. This isn’t great as I’m assuming they’ll be more in the series? Overall, it isn’t a bad book and one of my negatives may just be because I started the second in the series. It’s a highly recommended book for those who enjoy urban fantasy.
Positives
+ World building was good
+ Good mystery
Negatives
– Un-memorable
– Magic system unexplained
I received To Seize a Wayward Spirit* by R.L. Naquin from the publisher via NetGalley. This is an unbiased and honest review.
View Comments (7)
Great review, I love how you included pros and cons!
Suffering Wanderlust
I like that you don't have to read the prior book and can immediately pick this up too. Thanks for the review, I might give this a read in the future!
Great review as always. I start to feel we have a similar taste in books! 😊 I will put this and its prequel on my list haha!
How are you reading this many books?! 😅 great review! x
I read a lot over my Xmas break so I had loads of them to review this month! 😅 I don't normally read this fast!
Fantasy fiction is always interesting because of the world building and new creatures. This one sounds like fun.
The book seems interesting. Would surely like to grab a read. I love fantasy books and as you said at times many things aren't well explained but surely can be enjoyed if we don't try to apply too much of logic and reasoning there haha!