5/5 stars
Recommended if you like: historical fantasy, alchemy, quests
Big thanks to Netgalley, Inkyard Press, and the author for an ARC in exchange for an honest review!
This book opens a couple of weeks after The Scarlet Alchemist leaves off. Zilan and Wenshu are searching for Penglai Island so Zilan can return Wenshu and Yufei to their bodies and bring back everyone who died in the palace coup.
But stories are never just stories, and things are far more complicated than either of them suspected. While they do find a map (sort of) to Penglai Island, there are alchemy components they’re missing in order to make the journey, and that opens up a whole other can of worms, and opponents, for them to cross.
We actually get to see more types of alchemy in this book. While the royal alchemists are dead, and things aren’t looking so great for everyday alchemists, Zilan and Wenshu have to find some powerful ones in order to get what they need for Penglai Island. Resurrection alchemy may be forbidden, but there seems like there’s a lot of other kinds of alchemy that teeter on the edge of what is and isn’t allowed as well. It was interesting to see more kinds of alchemy and what the potential bounds of the science/magic are.
Poor Zilan has been through so much and is struggling with being the only royal alchemist left, especially since she was the newest of the group and thus the most inexperienced. Because of what happened in book 1, she feels as if she needs to rectify her mistakes and that that’s all her responsibility. Luckily though she’s on better terms with her siblings in this one, so there are points when Wenshu and Yufei are able to knock some sense into her.
I liked getting to see more Wenshu in this one, though I wish more of his eccentricities were on display. He seemed less concerned with cleanliness in this one, though it does pop up at times (perhaps the dismembering a person helped with that), and he’s just as intense when it comes to his writing and calligraphy.
I wish we got to see more of Yufei. The situation being what it is, she stayed in the palace while Zilan and Wenshu went on their quest, so she only pops up toward the end of the novel when they’re all reunited. She’s a fun character to read about and I liked seeing how she can be both playful and carefree but also intense and willing to fight.
We also get to see a returning character from book 1, Zheng Sili. He was an antagonist then, acting actually quite terribly toward Zilan during the competition and then helping the empress at the end when everything was going wrong. But he seems to have turned over a new leaf and promises to help Zilan and Wenshu. The three actually become friends and I liked seeing their dynamic. When he’s not being an ass, Sili’s actually pretty funny and helpful.
Getting to Penglai Island is already difficult enough, but there are shadows lurking in the River Plane and someone is hunting for Zilan and Wenshu. A surprising opponent turns up that complicates things, and soon they’re racing against the clock to try and stop this enemy of theirs. I wasn’t really sure how I felt about this enemy at first, but I actually think it helps make the story more dynamic and gives it some nice tension beyond the obstacles to getting to Penglai Island.
Overall I enjoyed this book and think it’s a nice sequel/conclusion to The Scarlet Alchemist. I liked getting to see more friendship and sibling dynamics in this one, and it was interesting to see the other ways the bounds of alchemy could be stretched.
Reading Queen E Reviews 