The Blood Orchid (The Scarlet Alchemist 2) by Kylie Lee Baker
5 stars
Out: October 1st 2024
Zilan is searching for the mythical Penglai island, home to eight immortal beings and their elixir of eternal life. She wants to find a way to bring her loved ones back. As many different obstacles like private armies, tricky alchemists and old enemies threaten her path she fights with expected and unexpected allies to overcome them. Can she pay the steep price to achieve her goal?
With its chilling prologue we are instantly hooked and enjoy the lush, poetically flourished writing of the author. This is a satiating fantastical world, a cruel world, presenting those vivid descriptions that haunt your imagination and figurative speech to admire and envy, that bring the page alive. Boldy and beautifully evocative, colored with a philosophical tint. The narrative drips with intrigue from the start. It is a companionable narrative that brings us along for the ride. The humor and wit we loved in the first one are here and we must not forget our fave animale sidekick. Or Wensu's snark.
The author uses her vibrant depiction skills to show us the alchemy, the whole mythology which evolves wonderfully in this sequel. This story is a quest. A quest involving a squad that is so entertaining and clever you will be enamored with them. They meet engaging characters along the way and the twists keep on coming, some of them ingenious. A deliciously evil villain always makes a tale better and this delivers. Moves along at a nice canter, then gallops at certain exciting moments, stealing your breath. So much happens but you are never lost as the storyline breathes. You get to feel and discover alongside the protagonist. When you are yelling at a book, at the events or characters in the story, you know you love it.
"You couldn't build a new dream on shaky foundations" says the book. Do we agree? It doesn't matter, making things better is not as easy as one may think. Unfortunately, there is a delicate and mostly unfair balance of how society works and the gap between the haves and the have-nots is deep. It deals with power and how you use it. Power has a price. About what we do for those we love. About setting things right.
Brutally honest, peak storytelling, hope-provoking and gut-wrenching, I felt like I was holding my heart at the end. Loved, loved, loved this series.
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