Crazy Ass, Fighter Chick with a Purple Fire Blade that Spawns from Her Chest

Rating: 3/5

I received a copy through the group YA Buddy Readers’ Corner on goodreads in return for an honest review.

Summary: Demorn is a refugee/mercenary from Asanti- her home world that has been destroyed. She is haunted by Kate, her lover, and Firethorn, the magical dimension where Kate was murdered. Demorn runs on vengeance doled out by the Innocents- a club of mercenaries/assassins that protect her brother and give her a home. But something is not right with the world. Evil creatures are invading and worlds are being torn apart. Can Demorn stop Ultimate Fate and save the Innocents?

This book was fucking crazy. So much happened and I think I really only retained about 75% of all the events. The plot had some dull moments, but for the most part it was action/fighting scenes. There was a good overarching story, but the world building wasn’t executed as well as I would’ve liked. There were different worlds, and alternate universes and strange fantasy things that I just couldn’t figure out. I love fantasy, and this was definitely fantastical, but it needed some more explaining and solid backstory. Another thing that didn’t help was the fact that time was disorganized. So we’d be in the present then the past then the future and then somewhere else and by that point I was just like what?

I liked Demorn. I thought she was sassy, fun and a badass in general. All good things I like in my characters. One thing that kind of annoyed me in the first half was that she kept mentioning her purple sunglasses and her magic eyes. Okay, I got it the first seven times, you don’t have to keep repeating yourself. I liked her bond with her brother too, she was super sweet to him.

So Demorn is basically a mercenary and she’s riding waves of vengeance because her lover Kate was killed. However, Kate didn’t seem all that dead. Or maybe she was dead in one world but not the others? I was super confused by this, because she like haunted Demorn and was basically a rude ghosty thing. If you’re dead, please stay dead or make more sense about not being dead. Also, this happened with other characters, they would die, but then show up later very much not dead. Wait how does that work? No idea…

I think this would be an awesome and super intriguing series if it had some more backstory and better world development. Why are there parallel universes? What exactly is Asanti? What is the Spire and what does it do? How does the Ultimate Fate fit in to everything? I feel like the answers to these questions would be a good place to start and would make the book more understand. That said, I did enjoy it.