Review – Stone Cold (Broken Magic, Book 2) by Devon Monk (4/5 stars)

Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Length: 368 pages
Publisher: Roc
Release Date: April 1, 2014
ISBN-13: 978-0451417930
Stand Alone or Series: 2nd book in the Broken Magic series
Source: Borrowed from Library
Rating: 4/5 stars

This is the second (and final) book in the Broken Magic series by Monk. This has been a good spin-off series from the Allie Beckstrom series. It features Terric and Shame. I enjoyed it a lot. I would recommend reading the Allie Beckstrom series before this one because there is a lot that happens in this book that ties back into that original series.

Shame and Terric are still trying to track down Eli, the magic user that has caused so much trouble throughout the series. Eli now is being backed by the government in another evil endeavor. The government wants to use Soul Complements as weapons by using them to make innocent people walking magical bombs. Shame and Terric will have to do their best to tame their Death and Life magic and stop Eli before he kills off even more Soul Complements.

A lot happens in this book. Shame and Terric are really run through the ringer here…they just go through so much pain and suffering throughout the book.

Most of the book is told from Shame’s POV, but some of it is also from Terric’s. Shame does a lot of angsting about how he is evil…blah, blah, blah. But if you have read about Shame in other books you know that that is just how his character is. We do get to learn more about Shame’s past and get to understand him a lot better as a character in this book. We learn what drives Shame and get to see past his obnoxious/selfish-seeming exterior.

Terric doesn’t feature quite as much, but we do get more insight into Life magic and how too much Life isn’t necessarily a good thing. Both Shame and Terric are scary powerful magic users and the magic uses them more than they use the magic.

The plot is very well done and not only wraps up this duology nicely, but also wraps up a lot of loose ends from the Allie Beckstrom series nicely. Allie and Zayvion are in the story some, as well as all of the other characters we got to know and love in the Allie Beckstrom series.

Overall I enjoyed this book and thought it wrapped up the Broken Magic duology nicely. I would definitely recommend reading the Allie Beckstrom series before this one, there is just a lot that ties in with the Allie Beckstrom books that you will miss out on if you haven’t read those. I thought everything ended at an excellent place and enjoyed watching Shame and Terric wrestle with their powerful magic. I would definitely recommend this series to urban fantasy fans, especially those who were fans of the Allie Beckstrom series.

This book goes towards the following reading challenges:
– Series Reading Challenge
– You Read How Many Books? Reading Challenge