Where do I begin? I do hate to give low ratings and bad reviews, but in this case, I wish there was a rating lower than 1 star. The basic story line of this steampunk novel is promising. Sebastian Davenport has been missing for 5 years. Now, his father Blake, the head of the League of Illusion, is dying, and if his successor, Sebastian, is not found before the Summer Solstice, leadership of the League will go to another, much less honorable family. It's up to Sebastian's brothers, the playboy/ex-thief Jovan and the reserved and noble Rhys, to find him. To help in the search, they call in Druid tracker Skylar Vanguard, who it just so happens had a torrid affair with Jovan 7 years earlier that ended with her heart broken by his thievery and lies. Will they find Sebastian in time, or will their enemies, who do not operate within the law, defeat them and take over the League?

The basic premise of the book was a good one and could have been done very well. However, the book was just generally terribly written. The main characters are not very likable and sound more like "petulant children" (to borrow a phrase from Skylar in the book), constantly bickering with one another, and the dialogue is awful. There are also parts of the story that just don't make sense. Jovan supposedly "left no stone unturned" when Sebastian first disappeared, yet within a few hours Skylar manages to find out that Sebastian had been in love but had accidentally killed the woman he loved just before he disappeared. She talked to one person to discover this, and she didn't even have to use her druid tracking powers to find this person. How hard could they really have looked? All the stuff about keys and doors and time travelling was just not very well explained, although I do see that it's a set-up for the second novel in the series, which I will NOT be reading. I would have been expecting the poor quality of this book if it had been something I had downloaded for free. I allow for poor editing, etc., in that situation. However, this is something that I downloaded from my public library's ebook collection, which they pay a lot of money for content for, so I expected much better. ( )

I read Prophecy, book two in this series first, and really enjoyed it. I also liked this book but not quite as well. The story is intriguing, the characters interesting and the plot imaginative. The story could have been rounded out more. Definitely worth a read.

Heat Rating: Mild detailed scenes of intimacy, mild violence or profanity.

Rating: 4.0

Reviewed By: ReadWarrior,My Book Addiction Reviews ( )