The Mirror of Beasts

(4.75) Dark, horrific fantasy with deeply layered lore, complex characters, and a fiercely tender heart beating throughout.

The tone of this book was a definite shift from the first (totally expected after how book one ends), but all the elements that made me love Silver in the Bone are there. The action outnumbers the mystery in this one, and that's saying something because there's still plenty of mystery to unpack. A lot of groundwork was laid in book one and it pays off beautifully.

There's strong themes of friendship, loyalty, and accepting the love you think you don't deserve. A lot of heavy emotions and difficult decisions. The main characters are working through deep grief and betrayal and they don't always handle it well, but that's part of what I liked about it. These characters are flawed, they have complicated motivations, and sometimes they make the wrong decisions but there's always a chance for forgiveness and redemption.

There's only a couple of things holding this back from being a full five star book.

I expected gore, but the slaughter in this book is so unrelenting that I almost found myself getting desensitized to it. The action scenes are very well written and it makes sense within the context of the story, it just started to feel repetitive.

There's a small number of chapters from another character that I truly disliked reading, but you're not supposed to feel sympathetic, so I suppose they did their job. I personally think the ending would have had the same emotional impact without their POV but I can see what it adds to the story.

The book leaves you with a sense of closure while also leaving room for some storylines to continue on. Would absolutely recommend. I think fans of One Dark Window would enjoy this.

This ARC was provided through NetGalley by Random House Children's Books in exchange for honest feedback.

I love it when the next books in the series are even better than the previous ones! I really liked Silver in the Bone, I thought it was a great start to a duology, tons of lore and world-building done really well, and The Mirror of Beasts is even somehow better? I gotta get to Bracken's other books if they'll be like this! I loved everything in here and I could definitely see myself rereading the duology (especially to see if I pick up on any hints or easter eggs).

I loved the characters so so much. They improved from the first book – I had to reread because I remembered like literally... nothing – which was a great idea as it really helped me to get into the characters' heads and understand their motivations. This book only carries that forward and definitely delves deeper into what makes them tick.

I said in my review for the first book that Tamsin and Emrys were my two favourite characters and that didn't change in here! They both went though such a change it was amazing to see them go on that journey and how Bracken never faltered on their development for their journey. I think I said I half or mostly liked Neve in the first book and I ended up liking her more here. I remember I didn't immediately like the sorcerers in the first book but they grew on me and then I really liked them!

As mentioned before, Bracken is amazing with the world building and plot. I was captivated throughout, I didn't want to stop reading, she really made me feel like I was in the book and fighting alongside the characters. That's always something I love to experience while reading a book – also a big compliment from a reader, in my eyes.

I love anything mythology and definitely anything Arthurian related. I need to get more books inspired by this mythology – I know there's a bunch. It's swords, it's fighting, it's magic – literally all right up my alley.