Ok, I'm going to throw the mic down here, not because of me, but because this author has provoked, evoked, smoked, ALL the flipping feels from me! So, well done Ms Reames, YOU deserve the mic!
Just as never solves and resolves (Never style!) a major threat to her and the world, she's thrown right back. And her agenda is simple, find and rescue some missing kids, kill those responsible. Yep, no half measures for Never, she freaking THRIVES in violent battles! And no, she's not off her rocker, she's unashamedly Never! With her growing found family, she's finally come to acknowledge she HAS a family. And of course, she has the most magnificent dragon by her side, her mate Nahum. Although, Never's life is the last thing from dull.... Now that she's determined to find the kids, she's leans once more on the Bone Reader and golly, what she learns amps the stakes yet again. Even magical barriers, magically enduced confusion doesn't deter her, never mind WHAT she supposedly is up against. Yes.... that's my Never, danger, trauma, pain is nothing to her resoluteness! And barrels through she does, in true Never form but when the foe is a Risik, the stakes are even higher, they aren't anything to scoff at. Geesh, what Never discovers she can do, what she is, disbelief is all round. Yep, disbelief that this author can control and manoeuvre the narrative every which way. If never feels as though she's been bombarded by a bomb, I'm picking pieces of shrapnel out my punctured body!
The magic this author dreams up is ingenious! So much magic, so uniquely awesome, earth shattering! And glory be is the action TENSE!!! For a moment there I truly thought all the metamorphic changes to Never were.... sucked away but Aggie rises to her full glory! I confess I released a "woosh" through my lips in relief. Never finally gets the "team work is dream work"! Her friends, her family, all rallied together, having each others backs but the one who surprised me the most was the Bone Reader, I wanted to kiss him! Yes, if you see WHAT he did, you'd love every bit of him too, even the concealed duplicitous side! And there's a Rumpelstiltskin.... I'll just let that sink in....
I'm not going to dissect the characters or the plot or the storytelling, it should be evident that it's all stupendous! Every book gets better and better, with every book, amazingly, unbelievably, I get more vested.The author truly sets stage gloriously, drapping and shrouding vital backdrops not only from Never but from the reader too. And when the curtain plunges down, I'm agog, I'm flabbergasted, I can barely think processing all the events! In fact, as Feral's response attests, "the flabber is gasted",which ultimately leads me to jump up and applaud the author vigorously until my hands hurt. The next book in the series can't come fast enough!