A Strange Hymn by Laura ThalassaMy rating: 2 of 5 stars
Our relationship was forged on bloodshed and solidified through deception. I am the dark creature that craves sex and destruction, and he is the king of it.
Callie survived Karnon, the Mad King, but the nightmare isn’t over. She now ears the physical reminders of her time as a captive and it is becoming increasingly more apparent that the Thief of Souls didn’t die with Karnon.
This is difficult to review because while I feel I’ve forgotten everything I also feel I know what happened because I’m pretty sure it was vastly similar to the first one. The characters spend the majority of the book barely acknowledging the problems they have, like the thousands of sleeping soldiers, and creepy children, and instead go to multiple parties and spend ages galivanting around Desmond’s kingdom. What’s the point? Where’s the character and plot development? Where’s the stakes? It’s very bland and really quite dull.
In my review for the first book I commented on the fact that the relationship between Callie and Des took precedent to the plot and while it may have worked for that first one, the plot needed to come first for this book, and unfortunately the author hasn’t done that. The trilogy cannot be held up by the romantic relationship of the characters alone and if that’s what the author is going with then it needs to be damn good romance. It isn’t. If anything this book shows nothing but flaws in their relationship and they aren’t endearing ones. Des is so controlling and yet Callie just goes with it. She occasionally comments about it but then gets easily lead away by him and it’s like good god girl get a spine!
There’s no depth or meat on the bones. The author seems to throw in moments of development or substance but instead of fully applying them to the story she skirts over them and they never get addressed again. It really makes the whole thing lacklustre. I found the characters enjoyable in the last book, but now I really don’t care. There was mild development with Callie as she came to terms with what Karnon did to her, but it felt overshadowed by the fact that they were just parading around Des’ kingdom with no real purpose. It felt like the author tried to add development and backstory for Des while they were galivanting, but everything was brushed over. You can’t allude or brush over things all the time. I feel the majority of the development for Des is likely in the novella, but I shouldn’t have to read a novella to get the full story it should be in the main book.
Overall, just meh. This is the first and last time I take reading recommendations from BookTok. The whole thing feels incredibly dragged out, it’s like the author wanted to write a trilogy but only had a plot for one book but decided to stretch it to fit three anyway. Half the stuff that happens in this add nothing to the story or characters and therefor are completely useless. I don’t particularly care about any of the characters anymore, there are swearwords thrown around randomly and carelessly which cheapens it, some of the dialogue is cringe-y, the “plot twist” was obvious and anti-climatic.
The worst part is this trilogy had a lot of potential. Callie is a rape survivor and has now survived being kidnapped to be impregnated against her will like the thousands of sleeping soldiers and yet everyone seems to take this very lightly and it’s only addressed a handful of times. The author could have really made an impact with this and written a powerful trilogy about surviving, but this definitely isn’t it. If I read the third one it’s only to finish the trilogy.
Emma Canning 