Dark Heart of Magic by Jennifer Estep Review

Dark Heart of Magic by Jennifer Estep

“Sometimes, humans were more monstrous than anything else.”

The story picks up a couple of weeks after the events of the first book and focuses on Tournament of Blades – a competition involving every family competing in one and one matches to find a winner. On top of dealing with that Lila has to find out what Victor is up to and find out who’s leaving a trail of slashed monsters and humans in the forest. One thing I really liked that the author does is she leaves clues to what happened in the previous book so if you like I did had difficulty knowing what happened in the previous book it made it way easier to read.

I really liked the main character of Lila – just as a general she wasn’t annoying and she’s just your typical likable underdog but she doesn’t have all these stereotypes attached to her character. One think I didn’t like is the emphasis on food the author does a lot – it clearly indicates that Lila is different to ‘typical girls’ which is annoying because her character doesn’t seem like the one to hate or compare herself to other girls in that way.

“Because there’s nothing more vicious than a girl who’s just had her heart broken.”

To add to that point, at the beginning of the novel I felt as if the female characters aside from Lila weren’t given a good introduction and instead focused on how each girl related to one of the guys – though it’s irritating to learn about females through their relationship with the male though its relevance is given later on at the end of the book. However I think the author could have made the female characters not just focus on their relationships with males and gain a separate character before they have that.

Furthermore it was frustrating that Lila picking up on all the clues she did didn’t guess who the villain was. It was so glaringly obvious there was no surprise attached to it.  I did think that Lila could have guessed it if she looked at the possibility that it wasn’t just a male who could fit the role. Though I wasn’t surprised by the reveal there was a twist near the end relating two characters together which is going to lead onto the plot for the final book. I really liked the twist and felt it was important to relate these certain characters as they both have key roles in their families.

Lastly everything else I liked; the writing style and development of the story were really built up well and the plot and action lead to interesting other plotlines. I cannot wait for the last book in the series. Plus the romance was cute!

★★★★☆