Hexbound: Dark Elite, #2 -- Chloe Neill
A short recap:
- Our heroine is packed off to boarding school for her last two years of high school...
- ...where she promptly discovers that magic is real and that she, Lily Parker, not only has a magical power, but the rarest and possibly most powerful of all known magical powers.
- As awesome as the magic is—well, minus that whole People Always Trying To Kill Her thing—it's not something that lasts forever. Once magic users reach age 25 (or so), they have to either give it up completely, or turn into insane soulsucking fiends.
- Meanwhile, her parents are in Germany on a research sabbatical...
- ...which is possibly of a sketchy nature, and very possibly related to magic.
- To complicate matters, she's almost-dating a werewolf, yet feels strangely drawn to a Handsome Bad Guy.
In this installment, she and her Adept buddies are up against two hideous monsters: a vicious pack of slimy fanged humanoids in the tunnels, and the Mean Girls in charge of the Dance Committee.
Pluses:
- The introduction of Adepts from the local research Enclave was especially fun, as they had Many Clever Gadgets.
- While Lily's power is Super Duper Flashy Powerful, what we learn about Scout's power this time suggests that it's waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more powerful than Lily's, regardless of what the Adepts think. I like the idea of the best friend having the mondo power, rather than the heroine.
- I love the infighting among the JV and Varsity members of Enclave Three—at one point, Lily mentions wanting to "grab scissors" every time an emo-haired Varsity Adept shakes his bangs out of his eyes—though, sadly, there was only a little bit of that.
- Looks like one of the Mean Girls has a Secret Past! Oooooo.
- Lesley—Scout and Lily's non-magical odd-duck cello-playing roommate—takes a more active role.
Minuses:
- As so often happens, the Bad Guy Love Interest is far more interesting and attractive than the Good Guy Love Interest, who, despite being a werewolf, is shockingly boring. Then again, he has blue eyes so very, very blue that it looks like he has "precious jewels for irises", so it may be possible that I'm holding that against him.
- Towards the end, Lily totally read my mind: "Does it ever feel like we spend at least thirty percent of our Adept time just traveling around?" I wondered aloud. Except I'd have said about seventy percent. For a book about spell-slingers battling it out in downtown Chicago, at times, it was kind of... dull.
Recommended to:
- Fans of Rachel Caine, Cate Tiernan, and other light-ish urban paranormal series.
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Book source: ILLed through my library.