I ended my last review of the previous book by saying that everything up until now felt like the set up. With this book focusing on tracking down the Facet and navigating a plague-blighted isle that seems to be even more true.

If anything the first two books in the Jekua series (On Lavender Tides and A Fracture in the Qwisdeep) felt almost like a slice of life Pokémon adventure. Pretty chill, just wandering around, collecting Jekua and seeing the sights. This is definitely not what’s going on in this book. For the first time the location actually seems to have an effect on the Jekua that they come across. I mean, sure, the previous books had certain biomes that meant that only certain Jekua would live here. But the ones on Yuluhu have been warped by the plague that rages across the island, as have the people who live there.

Because of this it’s a step up in terms of combat. People die in this book, Jekua have to be killed to stop them from attacking, whereas before mostly people just got knocked out. It comes on suddenly and was a bit unexpected. But so was the first Jekua attack so that kind of makes sense.

In general though, this book continues to give me everything I’m wanting from it. A slightly more serious Pokémon adventure, interesting locations and new Jekua to see. In fact this book introduced what might be my favourite Jekua yet. And the ending is fantastic by the way. It’s a big fight and it’s just so cool. I don’t want to spoil any of it but when it started I almost squealed in delight.

If I have one complaint it’s that something was revealed towards the end of the book and it didn’t have much of an impact on me. Mostly because I thought we already knew about it and had since the first book. But it nicely sets up the groups plans for the next book.

Speaking of, the book ends on one of the dumbest suggestions I’ve ever read. I can’t wait to see what they do about it, or if they even go through with it. And it’s those sort of questions that keep me reading.