A dark past. A hidden power. A dangerous enemy.Harley Merlin has a lot of unanswered questions in her life. What drove her father to kill her mother? How can she know the true extent of her magical abilities? Has Wade Crowley always been this annoying?After the violent gargoyle incident that left many dead, Harley fears what other evil tricks her psychotic aunt has up her sleeve. When she … tricks her psychotic aunt has up her sleeve. When she discovers that magical foster kids like herself are in danger, she knows she must do whatever it takes to protect them.
And it turns out that Tatyana, the Coven’s resident ghost-whisperer, is also willing to make sacrifices and has secrets of her own…
Continue the journey. Buy now!
*Beware of spoilers in the reviews below that are without spoiler alerts*
more
Excellent audiobook, Harley and Tatyana are dual protagonists
Book 2 picks up immediately after the events of Book 1 in this series. Finch Shipton is currently languishing in Purgatory, a magical, maximum-security prison. He is Harley Merlin’s half-brother (via their mutual father) and a villainous murderer in league with the Big Bad of the series, Katherine Shipton, who is his mother and Harley’s maternal aunt. The coven’s female doctor, who was Finch’s lover and aided and abetted him by covering up the fact that he is a shifter, is imprisoned in a dreary cell in the lower levels of the coven’s inter-dimensional, palace-like living space.
Holly has developed a close connection to a team of young magicals who are all in their late teens like her. They include Tatyana Vasilisa, Santana Catemaco, Raffe Levi, Astrid Hepler, Dylan Blight, and Wade Crowley, who is Harley’s romantic interest throughout this series. Harley and her teammates are dedicated to halting Katherine’s terrifying goal of obtaining godlike power and enslaving the whole world. Their current crucial, intermediate mission in that regard is to rescue dozens of magical children whom Katherine has kidnapped for her nefarious ends.
Unlike Book 1, which is narrated entirely from Harley’s first-person point of view, this book is in the alternating first-person POVs of both Harley and her teammate, Tatyana, a Russian magical who channels ghosts.
Though Harley and her friends are legally of age and none are in high school, which would logically cause a reader to assume that this series is “New Adult” rather than “Young Adult,” it is in fact marketed as YA. Perhaps that is because it shares the following characteristics with books typically written for an audience aged 12-17: (1) the story is told from the first-person POV of characters who are in their late teens; (2) there are no drugs, booze, smoking, swearing, wild parties or sex—only a few kisses between Tatyana and Dylan, her love interest, and no kisses at all between Harley and Wade; (3) the two heroines are social misfits, and their teammates—other than Wade—are all, in their own way, social misfits as well; (4) the powerful, experienced, adult witches and warlocks in the San Diego coven continue to incomprehensively sit on the sidelines throughout the dangerous action of this story in relation to Katherine Shipton, leaving it up to Harley’s relatively inexperienced team to save the coven and the human race from horrible danger. This is known as “orphaning” the protagonist(s), which is a hallmark of all action-adventure plots in general—including adult action adventure.
Harley’s most important characteristics, which make her a very sympathetic protagonist, are: compassion, courage, and enough conviction in her mission that she never gives up or sits on the sidelines. This is true of Tatyana as well, though, right from the first, it is obvious that, of the whole team, including Wade, Harley potentially has the most magical power of any of them.
Given that there are nine books in this series in which Harley is the main character, and given the fact that this book is urban fantasy and not paranormal romance, it is not surprising to me that the author continues to move the romance between Harley and Wade at a snail’s pace. In this installment, they increasingly view each other as someone to admire and count on in the thick of fierce battles, with only a few tiny, unspoken glimmers of romantic attraction along the way.
The magical world-building in this series continues to be well conceived and executed given how, relatively speaking, streamlined this series continues to be, compared to adult urban fantasy. This magical world is limited to witches, warlocks, and a few different types of monsters, including a type of demon. There are no vampires and no animal shifters, but there are shifters who transform into the appearance of any human at will, including clothing and idiosyncratic speech patterns.
Similar to Book 1, the pace of this story moves quickly. The author avoids extended, boring exposition, instead telling the story through dialogue and plenty of brisk action. The central mystery about what exactly Katherine Shipton is up to and how to go about stopping her continues to be the main focus of this novel.
I experienced this book both in Kindle and audiobook format. The narrator is Amanda Ronconi, who does an excellent job acting out the dialogue for all the various characters, portraying with equal skill male and female voices and various national accents.
These are all the Harley Merlin books in this extensive series in which Harley is the main protagonist:
Book 1: Harley Merlin and the Secret Coven, 2018 (from Harley’s POV)
Book 2: Harley Merlin and the Mystery Twins, 2018 (from Harley and Tatyana’s POV)
Book 3: Harley Merlin and the Stolen Magicals, 2018 (from Harley and Santana’s POV)
Book 4: Harley Merlin and the First Ritual, 2018 (from Harley and Astrid’s POV)
Book 5: Harley Merlin and the Broken Spell, 2018 (from Harley and Wade’s POV)
Book 6: Harley Merlin and the Cult of Eris, 2018 (from Harley and Finch’s POV)
Book 7: Harley Merlin and the Detector Fix, 2019 (from Harley and Jacob’s POV)
Book 8: Harley Merlin and the Challenge of Chaos, 2019 (from Harley and Katherine’s POV)
Book 9: Harley Merlin and the Mortal Pact, 2019 from Harley, Finch and Katherine’s POV)
I rate this book as follows:
Heroine: 5 stars
Romantic Interest: 5 stars
Subcharacters: 4 stars
Action Plot: 4 stars
Tatyana Romantic Subplot: 4 stars
Harley Romantic Subplot: 3 stars
Lack of Plausible Motivation for Adults Defaulting Their Duty: 2 stars
World-building: 4 stars
Writing: 4 stars
Audiobook Narration: 4 stars
Overall: 4 stars
Great follow-up to book 1!
I’m still thoroughly enjoying this series and the unexpected twists.