Wednesday, January 25, 2017

Book Review: The Sapphire Manticore by Marie Andreas

Title:  The Sapphire Manticore (The Lost Ancients, Book 4)
Author:  Marie Andreas
Genre:  Urban Fantasy, Paranormal, Fantasy
Release Date:  January 8, 2017

From the Back Cover:

Murderous magic, vanished races, killer relics, and drunken faeries--who knew the end of the world would look like this? The story that began in The Glass Gargoyle, The Obsidian Chimera, and The Emerald Dragon continues...

Taryn St. Giles thought she knew all about elves. She dreamed of the long vanished elves as a child and has spent the past fifteen years digging through their abandoned ruins in Beccia. Six months ago, Taryn found out everything she thought she knew about the elves was wrong.

Two weeks ago she found out how very wrong she'd been.

Taryn and Alric have been captured to answer for crimes against a long lost people. Crimes that could bring down an entire kingdom and revolve around a small, glass gargoyle. Part of a weapon that destroyed an extremely powerful race, now only known as the Ancients, it, and its fellow pieces are deadly to any who have them. Knowledge of the relics found by Taryn and Alric have spread far. Dangerous bands of long dead creatures, ghosts, and nightmares out of myths are waking up and hunting for the relics. And Taryn.
Buy Links: Amazon

My Review:

Taryn's at it again... and this time, she's found herself square in the middle of elvish craziness. Only this time, she's not spending her time hunting for relics and digging in the abandoned ruins. Nope. These elves are all very much alive... and someone's trying to kill her.

This is the fourth installment of the The Lost Ancients series and a welcome addition to the series. Our lovable and highly entertaining fairies are back, but sadly, they don't take center stage in this book. Instead, we have more of a focus on Taryn... and to a lesser degree, Alric. Unfortunately, the two budding lovebirds have been captured and are kept separate for most of the book -- so we miss out on those awesome romantic tingles. In fact, most of Taryn's former companions are kept separate. Instead, we're introduced to some interesting new characters -- elves, ghosts, and even a witch. This book was over three hundred pages, but it didn't feel like it... the story flew by and once again, left me with a ton of questions.

The main plot of The Sapphire Manticore follows the same formula as the rest of the series. It's namesake of each book references a single artifact, however each of these relics is simply a piece of some larger deadly weapon. While the main plot is somewhat predictable and follows the same pattern as the rest of the books, I find myself strangely hooked on the series in the hopes that all of the other questions will eventually be answered. Taryn's background, in particular, is something of a mystery.

Unfortunately, Taryn doesn't seem all that focused or interested in trying to answer the questions that I'm interested in. Granted, most of the time, she's dodging crossbow bolts, finding evil books, or escaping insane ghost trying to kill her... but I keep hoping in a moment of downtime that she'll try to figure out more about her strange abilities.

The book moved along at a rapid pace... I don't think I even came up for air once I started reading it. Marie Andreas has a way of writing that draws you into her world and keeps you captivated until the very last page. I'm anxiously looking forward to the next book in the series and hope that we'll find out even more as the series continues to unfold.

My Rating:


About the Author:

Marie is a fantasy and science fiction reader with a serious writing addiction. If she wasn't writing about all the people in her head, she'd be lurking about coffee shops annoying total strangers with her stories. So really, writing is a way of saving the masses. Her first fantasy series, The Lost Ancients, starts with The Glass Gargoyle. Books two and three, The Obsidian Chimera and The Emerald Dragon, are also out now. Book four, The Sapphire Manticore, will be out in January 2017. The six book series will continue in 2017 and 2018. A space opera trilogy, The Asarlai Wars, launched with Warrior Wench, and will continue in 2017 with the Victorious Dead. When not saving the masses from coffee shop shenanigans, Marie likes to visit the UK and keeps hoping someone will give her a nice summer home in the Forest of Dean.

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