Nova's gone nova
What's worse than discovering your father is a serial killer? Discovering what he's doing with those bodies, beyond the whole forcing humans to become magical nonsense. The Paris trip is on, so the house of horrors raid is set to commence. Yay. This is not the vacation and bonding time she was looking forward to. But what they discover is even worse than they thought. The question is, how are they going to stop it when they're not even sure what he's doing?
Spoilers ahead.
Nova is as irreverent and snarky as ever. This picks up 3 days after book 1, so no time skips. I'm still a little grumpy over the 3 week skip after an important nightmare scene that got glossed over, and was still ignored, in book 1. No such skips anywhere through this one, thank you. The violence progresses through this book, though. So beware. Trigger warnings for mild gore, evidence of torture, mention of defilement of bodies, and consensual-but violent-sexual relations between partners. Also, for those that don't care for it, and possibly missed reference to it in book 1, M/M. Although, seriously, I don't get the dislike. But to each their own. Anyways, as I was saying, the violence ramps up. As the investigation uncovers more things, pasts get mentioned, sexy times progress, and relationships begin to cement. I still have questions from book 1, as well as new ones, though.
*Seriously, how did her mom die? She survived fire, head crushed, stabbing, ... How did drowning kill her? Something else had to have happened.
*I need more info on these realms. How are they different? Other than the beings that live there lol. How does magic or environment or physics change across them?
*Gods don't seem godlike. Powerful and magical, but not omnipotent. So, they're simply a different race of magical being? Humans just started calling them that? If so, what name do they call themselves, as a people?
*If magics mingling form the bond, why isn't she bonded to all 8? Or, if it requires a fluid bond, at least 4 of them? Her magic has been buddy buddy with all of theirs. And she's been intimate with all to a degree, though further with some than others.
*If her magic is chaos, how did her control become so perfect so quickly? It seems an oxymoron.
*Still no explanation of her newly acquired ninja fighting skills.
*Is portal magic a skill or just enough magical oomph to be able to muscle one open?
*Are they set sites or can one be opened anywhere?
*Why aren't they more concerned with Tara lurking? She already darted Nova, threatened her. Shady behavior, especially with current events, should warrant a deeper look, I'd think.
There were a lot more oopsies, grammatical and punctuation, this book than the first. A good editing would shake them out. I still enjoyed the read and will have to go back and read the other series. Apparently Red Masques and the Vengeance series come together before this one. As in, they have overlapping story lines, and characters mentioned in here were the focus of those stories.
PS: I do have a complaint about the cover art, though. Lovely picture, just not the same model as the 1st book, and the hair is all wrong. Her hair is dark blue, to silver and back. The model's is lavender. As chaos or storms (her powers) aren't mentioned in the title, and oddly blood (not death?) is, with the different model I wasn't sure if it was the same series at first.