Title: Dark Harmony
Author: Laura Thalassa
Publisher: Bloom Books
Publication Date: November 15, 2022
ISBN: 9781728272855
Synopsis:
For Callypso Lillis, the fae magic that now runs through her veins is equal parts curse and good fortune. While it bonds her to Desmond Flynn, her soulmate and the King of Night, it also leaves her newly vulnerable to the Thief of Souls.
But it’s not just the Thief whose shadow looms over the fae realms. Des’s father, the previous King of Night, has returned from the dead, and he wants revenge on the son who sent him to the grave in the first place.
Time is running out to track down both enemies and stop their plans from unfolding. Callie and Des race across realms, gathering clues and unraveling secrets, but fate and chaos are catching up to them. If they can’t find a way to stop the forces working to tear them and their kingdom apart, they risk not just their lives, but the lives of all fairies…and unfortunately for them, death is no longer the worst outcome.
———
Finally reaching the end of The Bargainer series has feels like an end of an era. After months of waiting for the audiobook through my library app, I finally got my hands on an audio copy of this conclusion. Easy to read, though not the best written book ever, it’s an entertaining series with great world building and interesting magic. It’s unique in its exploration of the fae and mortal worlds and the characters move around frequently, keeping the reader engaged with vastly different settings.
I found pacing in this book to be off in comparison to the first few. A whole lot of nothing happens for the first two-thirds of the book, then the action is jammed into a very short window of time, with no real climax of action at the end. While Callie does eventually come face-to-face with the Thief of Souls, their encounter is anticlimactic and a bit too easy for my liking.
It’s a good, but not great kind of book. The characters motivations are questionable, Callie really struggles to find her strength and power and fails to really come into her own, and the big reveal of the Thief of Souls didn’t really live up to the hype. There is so much time spent building up the mystery surrounding who he could be, and I feel like it could have been built out to be so much more engaging than it was.
While I enjoyed this series, there are a number of things that left me feeling frustrated. It’s a great audiobook to listen to when walking or working out, and it kept me engaged along the way. But overall, I can’t say I’d add it to my favourites list.
Happy reading!
Worn Pages and Ink 