Book Review
Title: Wrath of the Talon by Sophie Kim (Talon Book 2)
Genre: Fantasy, Folklore
Rating: 3.25 Stars
After the ending of book one, the prelude sets up a revenge story unlike the first book since Lina now has new powers on her side, but we don’t know what this means for her, and Rui’s reaction plays into this. After returning Lina to Sunpo, we know her plan is to destroy the Blackbloods working for the bottom up, leaving Asina and Kalmin for last. She is also gathering allies in the city to help establish her rule when Kalmin is finally gone but she is struggling to gain control of her new abilities and it is beginning to frustrate her especially since she doesn’t have Rui to lean on during these moments. As Lina butchers her way through the lowest rank of the Blackbloods, the claws, we see that she is also trying to make amends for things she has done in the past, to see herself as good and worthy of leading Sunpo. Lina has a lot of issues that are coming to the front in this book and without Rui or Eunbi to distract her, she has no choice but to face them.
The introduction of the Voice is also something new, it was briefly looked at towards the end of the first book, but we really see it here. It seems like when Lina was given the enhancer and brought back to life, something attached itself to her resulting in the voice in her head. I think it is an Imugi personally, since it would explain, its hatred towards Dokkaebi, as they are mortal enemies, it explains the strange dreams Lina has been having to. However, I think there is more to it than the Voice and her Imugi abilities, I think Lina might be involved in something larger since the Imugi in her dreams refers to her as child of venom. Rui is also dealing with his own issues as he has been forced to break his promise to Lina, kidnapping an entire marketplace from Sunpo and she seems to figure out that the gods or something darker is forcing his hand. Again, I think this is the Imugi, my theory is Rui struck a bargain with them to retreat to the realm of the dead, ending the war between their races and in return he must feed them humans or human souls, but I am not 100% sure right now.
It is beginning to seem like I was partially right, but we don’t have all the facts yet. Lina has succeeded in basically wiping out the claws and made some allies along the way, which has angered Kalmin, but he doesn’t suspect Lina at all, even moving the Blackbloods into the Talon’s palace. One of the allies she has made in Song, turns out to be gumiho, potentially the last one in the human realm after the rest were wiped out and Lina is determined to protect her when she has control of Sunpo. Meanwhile, Rui asks to return Eunbi for one day while something is happening in his realm and while he doesn’t talk about it, we do get to see some of it. It turns out that they are paying a tithe for almost losing the war with the Imugi and the humans he took from the market are being killed or tortured but he can’t discuss it with Lina yet. It is also here that Rui confesses to Kang that he believes he and Lina are soul-stitched, which is tied to the rare occurrence of the red string of fate binding two souls together, in this case, Rui and Lina which might be a problem later since many like Hana are both suspicious and scared of Lina because of her Imugi traits and she still has the Voice to deal with.
We follow Lina as she continues killing and gaining allies, but the Voice is becoming more of a problem especially when it takes away her fear of the Imugi. She ends up speaking with the one from her visions and dreams and learns that they are bound because Lina consumed its scale which make sense in a twisted way. She does end up telling Rui that an Imugi came to her which prompts them to bounce off one another again both wanting to know the other’s secret despite Lina already having a good idea what happened to the people in the market, but she doesn’t know why. In the end she ends up taking down the remaining targets, but the Voice convinces her to target Asina to, but Asina is a far more deadly opponent. While Lina gets the drop on them in the beginning, Asina knows her weaknesses forcing her to summon the Imugi, Sonagi to kill her. In return, Sonagi shows her the history that Rui has been withholding from her and more.
It turns out that the Imugi retreated from the war with the Gods and Dokkaebi, regardless of the bargain Rui made and the tithe he pays to them because the god of death had come to them. He informed the Imugi of a prophecy and gave them his realm to retreat into which they did, and they have been waiting for the Child of Venom in Lina to emerge. However, it is stated that once prophecies are heard, they are almost certain to come true and despite not wanting to know it, the Voice forces Lina to hear it, almost gaining completely control over her body and mind. I don’t think the Voice is aware of the emotionally connection between Rui and Lina meaning that even if the Voice was controlling Lina’s actions and words, Rui would be able to feel the truth in her emotions. I still want to know what or who the voice is exactly since it seems to have strong ties to the Imugi without being one and hates the Dokkaebi and Gods alike. At the halfway point, I am aware that there is a third book to come so I have a feeling a major cliffhanger is coming. I think the rest of this book will be Lina being controlled by the Voice and Rui figuring out what is going on with her and the final book will be bringing various elements of the plot to their conclusions which is a same since there are enough duologies and this is already feeling way too drawn out for my liking.
It is soon explained that the voice is the sentient prophecy driving Lina to fulfil it even though it isn’t what she wants. Rui determined to believe they are bound as lovers, not enemies, begins looking for a way to free Lina from the prophecy without killing her as Hana and Chan have suggested. They come to the conclusion of a fake alliance with the Imugi but marrying Lina and Rui, while buying themselves some time and surprising Lina controlled by the prophecy agrees to this. Despite being trapped Lina is aware that Rui knows there is something different about her but tries to keep it hidden from the voice. With the wedding preparations sets for a few days’ time, they break the news to the Imugi who seem pleased with the arrangement especially when Lina frees them from the realm of the dead. Her allies have also noticed something is off with Lina, but they can’t really do or say anything about it, the only one that would have a chance against Lina now is Song or Rui.
Rui during an argument with “Lina” realises that his fire does damage to the prophecy long enough for the real Lina to rise to the surface and when he informs Kang of this, he immediately begins researching a way they can use this to their advantage since they have 5 days at most before Lina is in control of Sunpo and one step closer to the outcome the Imugi want which is their evolution into dragons. Honestly, I knew with only 100 pages left that nothing was going to get tied up neatly in this book but I was hoping for Lina to be broken out of this control or at least for them to find a safe way to drive it back, giving Lina her conscious control back since following her like this really isn’t that entertaining as it is destroying a character we have come to care for over the course of two books.
Honestly, the ending of the book had me cursing, I was expecting a cliffhanger, but I was hoping the story went in an entirely different direction than it did. Due to this I won’t be reading the final book when it comes out. A specific death was used as fodder in my opinion and the final scenes were all to set up something that could have been done in this book. I believe if the pacing issue in the first book was fixed, the first half of this one could have been put there. Then the second half of this book regardless of whether the author went down the path she did or the one I wanted could have played it out better than what we got. One feature of the book that wasn’t great for me was the interludes. In most books, these are used to feature character perspective from minor characters or show events from a different perspective, think how Sanderson uses them in The Ways of Kings. The only purpose they serve here is to show Rui’s perspective, which makes me think this might have been better as a dual POV series rather than singular if Kim was just going to include Rui’s perspective anyway. Overall, this book wasn’t bad, but I was very disappointed by the direction it took so it will get a lower rating than book one.
Book Links: Amazon Barnes & Noble IndieBound
Comentarios