Published: April 20, 2021
Publisher: Tor Books
Series: Chronicles of Amicae #3
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 288 (Paperback)
My Rating: 3.0/5.0
A copy of this book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
Synopsis:
Mirah Bolender follows The Monstrous Citadel with Fortress of Magi—the pulse-pounding conclusion to her debut fantasy trilogy in which a bomb squad defuses the magic weapons of a long forgotten war
The Hive Mind has done the impossible—left its island prison. It’s a matter of time before Amicae falls, and Laura Kramer has very few resources left to prevent it.
The council has tied her hands, and the gangs want her dead. Her only real choice is to walk away and leave the city to its fate.
I’ve been long awaiting the final book in the Chronicles of Amicae trilogy, mostly to see if Clae Sinclair would somehow come back to life. I won’t tell you here since that would be kind of unfair and also a huge spoiler. This was quite a short book, so any spoilers are kind of a big deal.
Laura and Okane are still running the Sinclair Sweepers, Amicae’s only non-gang affiliated sweeper crew. It’s just the two of them against… an unusually small number of infestations? What? Something strange is going on and one of the neighboring towns has gone radio silent – then word comes that they were overrun by infestations. Something big is happening, so it’s fortunate that some of our friends from the previous book show up looking for asylum in Amicae. A few more sweepers could make all the difference, even if they are from Rex and just can’t seem to get along with one another.
The book focused far more on the political climate in Amicae, the struggles of how the Rexian refugees are treated by the city (constantly under guard), and how they just can’t not argue with one another. The growing infestation issue was a secondary concern and quite frankly didn’t make me fear for our characters lives. This book could have benefitted from some extra length and detail because it was a little underwhelming as it is. The ending happened suddenly and left me feeling somewhat disappointed in its brevity and overall lack of emotional impact.
This series was a really fun read, but the first book remains the strongest of the three. I liked following the characters and there were plenty of harrowing events and new locales throughout the series, but the books were so short that I feel we didn’t get as much detail or time spent as was needed.
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