How fitting that Cole would quote Alice in Wonderland in this book

 

 

   Because reading this story felt just like Alice falling down the rabbit hole into Crazytown.

 

 

  Seriously. In the first book, you knew something was off, there was a sense of unease, an increasing build of tension that snapped in the end, And once it did and you discovered things weren't what they appeared, even though devastating, you had that few minutes where you thought that maybe, just maybe after some therapy and time, healing could begin. And then WHAM! You get clobbered with a hell of a cliffhanger letting you know that things still aren't finished and you don't even know the half of it.

 

   So if the first book, Nocte, was unsettling, than you could say that Verum was unhinged. It was a slightly different experience, as most crazy people don't know that they're crazy, and Calla was actually hip to the fact that her mind wasn't exactly the most reliable of sources. But I actually think that amped things up to a whole new level. To be aware that you can't trust what you see, what you hear, what you know.  That's enough to drive you over the edge that you're already teetering on, don't you think?

 

   While I loved trying to discern reality from fantasy, grasping at the thinnest of straws and all that, I was disappointed to not really get any answers until another major cliffhanger at the end of this book. I mean obviously I really dig this story, but I kind of wanted to drop kick my kindle across the room after that ending.

 

 

    It was an awesome twist, don't get me wrong. But yet again we are left with a few nagging questions answered just to raise even more unabatingly maddening questions! Clearly I will be reading the next book because...

 

 

 

    I received a copy of this book from Badass Marketing in exchange for an honest review.

These books are twisted in ways you can't even imagine. Every time I think I know whats going on, I'm wrong. Or, worse, I'm sort of right. I can't believe I have to wait for the next one! You just don't know whats real in these books. Except the pain; the pain is real.

I cannot decide how I feel about this book.

On the one hand, I really enjoyed it. It was fast-paced with unexpected twists and turns, and I enjoy the main characters and the way Courney Cole deals with mental illness and what it looks like to be inside the mind of someone dealing with trauma. On the other hand, the plotting of this book was haphazard at best, with major events happening seemingly out of the blue. At many points, I felt as though I was reading a book that had never been proofread, and from about the second chapter in, I had a constant feeling that I had somehow skipped over an entire chapter of very important information. Even though I was able to quickly pick up what was happening, it was still an unsettling jump. The reason this didn't bother me more is that, after finishing the book, I am thinking that some of the unexplained jumps, including the big one at the beginning, were done on purpose to mirror some underlying things going on throughout the book. If that is the case, I can forgive the inconsistencies, although I would still have preferred a book without them.

As for the actual storyline of this book, after reading Nocte, almost any big cliffhanger reveal this book could offer would never compare. At the point of the big reveal in Nocte I literally felt as though I had been doused in a bucket of ice water, but after the Verum reveal I only felt a mild twinge of surprise, and also some annoyance because that plot device again, really? I'm not saying it was bad, and I don't think you could, in good conscious, call these books unoriginal, but after the near perfection of the Nocte twist, I was expecting a bit more from Verum.

As for the cliffhanger ending, it was exactly what I expected, but I am still freaking out about it...and regardless of my lukewarm feelings towards this book, I still cannot wait for Lux...Summer 2015 cannot come fast enough!

Mindfuck. That's all I can say for now. *headspins*

No więc tak - bardzo długom czekał na ten tom. Nie zawiodłem się. Piekara wciąż w dobrej formie. Powieść historyczna obrazująca poczynania panów szlachciców w Rzeczypospolitej. Pierwszy tom zawiesił nas w bardzo ciekawym momencie i drugi niestety robi to samo nie przynosząc odpowiedzi na najbardziej nurtujące pytania. Zaczynam myśleć, że po cykl sięgnę gdy będzie on już ukończony. W przeciwnym razie takie zawieszenie może się okazać zbyt irytujące. No cóż - świetnych książek nie pisze się w kilka dni - zastrzeżenie wynika raczej z mojej niecierpliwości niż z wad książki.

Chociaż czy aby na pewno? O ile pierwsza część była niesamowicie wartka i spójna o tyle w drugiej wyczułem lekki powiew specjalnego przedłużenia... Mam nadzieję, że się mylę i że nie będziemy mieć tu do czynienia ze sztucznym wydłużaniem cyklu.

Nie wiem również czy mieszanie w intrygę Warszawy i spraw Królewskich to dobry pomysł - wątki te jakoś tak rozjeżdżają niezwykłą spójność pierwszego cyklu - no ale pożyjemy zobaczymy. 

 

Niejako z obowiązku należy wspomnieć o wydanym Audiobooku - podobnie jak w przypadku pierwszej części - bardzo dobra robota.

 

Dla kogo? Miłośnicy Sarmacji, Sarmatów, Rzeczypospolitej i powieści detektywistycznej.