Review: Curse of the Gargoyles

Curse of the Gargoyles by Rebecca Chastain
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is the second book of the series and it built nicely on the first. It would not work as a standalone book as there is too much unsaid. This book follows Mika as she works in her new career as a gargoyle healer. The gargoyles she rescued in the previous book have all started to find there own place in life as they grow older, except for Oliver the little dragon gargoyle who seems to want to keep working with Mika, refusing to find a new place to live with more balanced magical energies.

Mika is called for emergency help from the FPD team she worked with in the last book (you see why I said you need to read the previous book first to understand this one?). In the middle of park is a dormant gargoyle wrapped in a magical construct designed to extract his magic and make an artificial magical boost for an elemental without needing to work with the living creature. The construct is woven inside the gargoyle and Mika is needed to help extract him and heal him from the damage that has been done.

This book is a masterclass in the magical system built by this author. Honestly, a couple of times my brain hurt a little bit as I tried to work out what she was talking about. However, as far as I could tell it all *seemed* consistent but I wasn’t studying too deeply. Almost the entire book was taken up with magical damage being done by the construct and how to get it all contained and the damage repaired. It was definitely an interesting read and though it sounds dry it was quite a quick and interesting read.

There was also further exploration of the relationships between Mika and the members of the FPD she was working with and it will interesting to see if any deeper friendships form in future books. As the books in the series are so short, approximately 150 pages in this book, there is no time to get bored, but there is also little time for character development and interactions outside the plot. Still, I enjoyed it as much as the first one!

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