Magicks and Lost Things
May. 10th, 2025 10:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alobearThe Rise of Magicks by Nora Roberts is the final part of The Chronicles of The One trilogy.
A magical plague has wiped out the majority of people in the world – though some are immune and others gain magical powers from it – conflict arises both from Purity Warriors who want to eradicate the magical people and also Dark Uncannys who have been turned evil by the influence of the magic.
Protagonist Fallon is prophesied to be The One, who can end the war and bring the world back into balance.
I like the world, I like the characters, the build-up to the final instalment has been really good – lots of found family and interesting exploration of how to stay the good guys in a war.
This provides a satisfying conclusion, though there’s probably a bit too much action for me and I’m really not interested in the romance aspect at all.
It’s pretty grim in places and has a very high body count, but that’s realistic in the context of the story and it doesn’t shy away from the consequences of war.
It focuses more on Fallon than the previous books and she’s my least favourite character, so I missed hanging out with all the others.
But the climax made me cry, I liked how it ended up and the epilogue was good, showing everything progressing back to a more normal way of life.
I was really expecting to love the Keeper of Lost Things by Ruth Hogan, since I really enjoyed the other book of hers I read a few years ago. And there were some things I loved about it - found family, lots of interesting stories of people who had lost things, some very amusing commentary on the publishing industry.
I enjoyed the secondary narrative thread, following the people in the publishing company from the 1970s on; less so the primary narrative thread about Laura inheriting the house with all the lost things in it and having to try and return them.
My main problem with it, though, was that supernatural elements suddenly got introduced quite a way through, when I was expecting the book to be entirely real-world. I certainly don't mind books having fantastical elements - I just want to know what kind of book I'm reading going in. And nobody really reacted to those elements with much surprise or even disbelief, which felt very unrealistic.
I mostly liked how it ended up, but overall it wasn't what I wanted it to be and I felt disappointed - though that's probably more my fault than the fault of the book.
A magical plague has wiped out the majority of people in the world – though some are immune and others gain magical powers from it – conflict arises both from Purity Warriors who want to eradicate the magical people and also Dark Uncannys who have been turned evil by the influence of the magic.
Protagonist Fallon is prophesied to be The One, who can end the war and bring the world back into balance.
I like the world, I like the characters, the build-up to the final instalment has been really good – lots of found family and interesting exploration of how to stay the good guys in a war.
This provides a satisfying conclusion, though there’s probably a bit too much action for me and I’m really not interested in the romance aspect at all.
It’s pretty grim in places and has a very high body count, but that’s realistic in the context of the story and it doesn’t shy away from the consequences of war.
It focuses more on Fallon than the previous books and she’s my least favourite character, so I missed hanging out with all the others.
But the climax made me cry, I liked how it ended up and the epilogue was good, showing everything progressing back to a more normal way of life.
I was really expecting to love the Keeper of Lost Things by Ruth Hogan, since I really enjoyed the other book of hers I read a few years ago. And there were some things I loved about it - found family, lots of interesting stories of people who had lost things, some very amusing commentary on the publishing industry.
I enjoyed the secondary narrative thread, following the people in the publishing company from the 1970s on; less so the primary narrative thread about Laura inheriting the house with all the lost things in it and having to try and return them.
My main problem with it, though, was that supernatural elements suddenly got introduced quite a way through, when I was expecting the book to be entirely real-world. I certainly don't mind books having fantastical elements - I just want to know what kind of book I'm reading going in. And nobody really reacted to those elements with much surprise or even disbelief, which felt very unrealistic.
I mostly liked how it ended up, but overall it wasn't what I wanted it to be and I felt disappointed - though that's probably more my fault than the fault of the book.
