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urlphantomhive's review against another edition
4.0
3.5 Stars
Read all my reviews on http://urlphantomhive.booklikes.com
A Taste of Death and Honey is the third book following the Vandergraffs in the December people series, which I've been following from the start. I've also seen its transformation of a rather mundane story in the first book, Destruction, to much more action in the last two books. One thing remains the same, it still feels rather slow, even with everything that is happening. For me, this is not a problem at all and I like the change from the things I usually read.
Samantha, who has now lost her parents and her dearest friend, is looking for the murderer of the latter and ends up back in Housten, where she will, unintentionally put a lot of people in mortal danger. Not so good, for a spring witch now, is she...
I spent the whole first part of the book trying to remember an Imogene, but I figured later that I probably wasn't supposed to remember her. This in the beginning caused some troubles as I couldn't really concentrate on what was going on, with them constantly mentioning Imogene. After things were cleared, this was no longer a problem though and it actually made for a rather fast read, also because I was curious to find how these things work.
What I liked to see, I'll try to explain it spoiler free, was that more than in the other books, you get to see that since they are winter witches, they actually are dark witches, and would be considered 'bad'. Not stereotypically in all their actions but in some of the decisions they make. One striking example (though not one of the more subtle ones) is when Evangeline tells Amanda she's been waiting for someone to try her new killing curse on, and this doesn't result in the reprimand that I would find very normal in this situation.
I did have some concerns with the magic system though. With the witches divided into the different seasons, now it was possible for them to perform certain spells that were not for their season. I don't remember completely how this worked in the earlier books, but why make the division if they still can do it all?
The good news is: at the end Sharon Bayliss announces that there will be a fourth book (and luckily, because it ends with quite the twist!). The bad news is that we'll have to wait for more than a year still to get it!
Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!
Read all my reviews on http://urlphantomhive.booklikes.com
A Taste of Death and Honey is the third book following the Vandergraffs in the December people series, which I've been following from the start. I've also seen its transformation of a rather mundane story in the first book, Destruction, to much more action in the last two books. One thing remains the same, it still feels rather slow, even with everything that is happening. For me, this is not a problem at all and I like the change from the things I usually read.
Samantha, who has now lost her parents and her dearest friend, is looking for the murderer of the latter and ends up back in Housten, where she will, unintentionally put a lot of people in mortal danger. Not so good, for a spring witch now, is she...
I spent the whole first part of the book trying to remember an Imogene, but I figured later that I probably wasn't supposed to remember her. This in the beginning caused some troubles as I couldn't really concentrate on what was going on, with them constantly mentioning Imogene. After things were cleared, this was no longer a problem though and it actually made for a rather fast read, also because I was curious to find how these things work.
What I liked to see, I'll try to explain it spoiler free, was that more than in the other books, you get to see that since they are winter witches, they actually are dark witches, and would be considered 'bad'. Not stereotypically in all their actions but in some of the decisions they make. One striking example (though not one of the more subtle ones) is when Evangeline tells Amanda she's been waiting for someone to try her new killing curse on, and this doesn't result in the reprimand that I would find very normal in this situation.
I did have some concerns with the magic system though. With the witches divided into the different seasons, now it was possible for them to perform certain spells that were not for their season. I don't remember completely how this worked in the earlier books, but why make the division if they still can do it all?
The good news is: at the end Sharon Bayliss announces that there will be a fourth book (and luckily, because it ends with quite the twist!). The bad news is that we'll have to wait for more than a year still to get it!
Thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!
paperbackstash's review
3.0
The December People has an intriguing premise that hooked me into the first two of series. There are witches in the world, born into different seasons that separate them more than they unite them. The series evolves around one troubled winter witch family. The darkness and non-conventional differences with this series previously made it stand out strong.
I hate to say it, but this one didn't hook me like the others. The forced feel with some of the writing caused the flow to suffer.
The author's blunt writing style serves its purpose when the going is good, but when it's hard to stay caught up in the plot when it instead comes across too simple. It took me awhile to figure out why I couldn't get glued in on this story as I did with the others; eventually I figured it was because the book was all over the place.
Secondary characters get plenty of page screen viewpoint, but so do the new and old. I've found that when you're doing frequent head hopping, you have to be careful not to make it distance the reader from the story to where they fall out of it completely. That's what happened here. When I started caring about one perspective, it shifted before I bonded. Eventually I cared little whose viewpoint was whose and what was going on. An unfortunate side effect of missing a step when frequently shifting third person POV.
There's a fourth planned to wrap everything up, so I'm hoping that one endears me as well as the others did.
I hate to say it, but this one didn't hook me like the others. The forced feel with some of the writing caused the flow to suffer.
The author's blunt writing style serves its purpose when the going is good, but when it's hard to stay caught up in the plot when it instead comes across too simple. It took me awhile to figure out why I couldn't get glued in on this story as I did with the others; eventually I figured it was because the book was all over the place.
Secondary characters get plenty of page screen viewpoint, but so do the new and old. I've found that when you're doing frequent head hopping, you have to be careful not to make it distance the reader from the story to where they fall out of it completely. That's what happened here. When I started caring about one perspective, it shifted before I bonded. Eventually I cared little whose viewpoint was whose and what was going on. An unfortunate side effect of missing a step when frequently shifting third person POV.
There's a fourth planned to wrap everything up, so I'm hoping that one endears me as well as the others did.
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