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Narrated by Will Watt.
This picks up directly after An Inheritance of Magic ends, and by this time I've become accustomed to the word 'sigl' (pronounced to rhyme with giggle. See my review of book 1 in this series, An Inheritance of Magic.) Stephen Oakwood is growing into his magic, though still learning. He’s still wary of his family, the Ashfords but when he loses his well-seeking job, thanks to a loud-mouthed friend – he ends up taking a job with the heir of the Ashford family who seems to be cut from a different cloth from the other Ashford siblings, but he’s being courted by a dangerous representative of a magical cult, who is teasing him with possible news of his missing father. He manages to negotiate his way around a potential rival and his murderous brother, but at the end of the book he’s still not found his father, so there’s obviously another book to come. Sadly this means that there’s a semi-cliffhanger with parts of the story resolved, but the greater part not. I think I’ve mentioned before how much I hate unresolved endings. Not sure when the next book in the series is out. The narrator is good, differentiating well between the voices.
Narrated by Will Watt.
This final Alex Verus book is almost all magical battle as the Light Council goes to war against Anne (Alex's lover) who has been possessed by a powerful jinn-like thing with an army of jinn to call on. Alex signs up for the fight with the intention of rescuing Anne, while the Council wants her deader than dead. Swinging into the fight in the side of the council is Richard Drakh, dark mage and once Alex's apprentice master. Alex doesn't trust him, of course. Richard has been his enemy all through this series. You just know that the final showdown will be in here somewhere - and you'd be right.
Alex must face his dark side in his eleventh outing. It seems as though Alex, a light wizard by inclination, but long ago apprenticed to dark mage Richard Drach, has absorbed a lot of that darkness – even presuming it wasn't there all along. Throughout the series, the Light Council have been highly suspicious of him, while the Dark mages have either been trying to recruit him or trick him to their side. This time Alex takes drastic action to protect his friends. Anne has gone rogue and Alex wants to keep her safe but knows she's powerful enough to kill him on the spot if she wants to. Alex himself is more powerful now he has the Fateweaver, but he has to figure out a way to stop the Council's death squads from hunting them down. He needs a way to neutralise his old enemy Levistus without involving his previous master, Richard. It involves a lot of playing one person against the other and throwing his lot in with previous enemies. The Alex Verus books are buy on sight for me. This one did not disappoint.
Classy urban fantasy set in (mostly) London with central character Alex Verus, a diviner with a very specific magical talent. He's not as powerful as a war mage, so he has to be clever. He's embroiled in politics now, a member of the Light Council, though most light mages think he's batting for the other side since he was trained by a powerful Dark Mage, Richard Drakh, who is currently waging war on the council. Trapped between the Council, who want to investigate him, and Richard, Alex will need a new strategy if he's to stay alive and protect his friends and his lover, Anne. Alex has to make some hard decisions. The trouble is, he doesn't really like either side. I grab these books as soon as they are published. Excellent stuff.
