Monday 19 August 2019

Review on The Demon World


After losing Pitoria to her father, Princess Catherine must make the difficult decision of leading the remaining survivors across the Northern Plateau, a barren icy wasteland full of demons. Chances of survival are slim, but the situation becomes even more dire when the group accidentally gets split up, leaving Tash in the demon world, and March and Edyon on the Plateau where the Brigantines are trying to kill them. Catherine must do what she can to get Prince Tzsayn’s people on her side, but will her lies be her downfall?

I was so happy when Penguin sent me a copy of this book! I loved The Smoke Thieves, so I was excited to find out what would happen to Catherine and her friends. The book wastes no time in jumping back into the action, where the Brigantine army is invading Pitoria. As the first book understandably contained a lot of world-building, I loved how this one was more action packed and didn’t focus quite as much on traveling. We were immediately given unanswered questions such as if Prince Tszayn has survived, and what would happen to Pitoria now that the Brigantines had invaded. I loved how some questions we were made to think about weren’t answered until near the end of the book, giving us plenty of time to mull over them and come up with our own theories.

Something I said in my review of The Smoke Thieves was that I didn’t like Catherine very much, as she seemed like a typical damsel in distress. This completely changed in this book, as Catherine became a strong leader and took on roles that were traditionally done by men. I loved how she made the men feel uncomfortable with how she succeeded in leading her people and advising the army. I definitely liked Catherine more in this book than in the first one! However, I sadly can’t say the same thing for Ambrose, who I found to be quite whiny and selfish, especially with how he reacted when he believed Catherine had married Prince Tszayn in secret. Although I understood why he would be upset over this, I found his reaction to be quite immature and selfish, as he threatened to leave. I felt as if his duty to protect Catherine should have come before his personal feelings for her. Honestly I low key want her to ditch his ass and be with Prince Tszayn. He truly is the most underrated character in this series.

Something I loved in the first book was Tash’s friendship with Edyon, so I was disappointed that she spent the majority of the book in the demon tunnels with only one other character.Come to think of it I don’t think Edyon and Tash interacted at all! Apart from this, I did enjoy Tash’s storyline. This book delves deeper into where the smoke actually comes from and how demons are created in the first place, and I loved learning about the demon tunnels and the unique way the demons communicate with each other. We were also introduced to Twist, a demon who Tash manages to befriend. I loved that after years of demon hunting, Tash comes to realize that everything she thought she knew about demons was a lie.

I of course have to talk about my faves, March and Edyon. Edyon continued to be a pure cinnamon roll while March spent most of the book feeling guilty that he had initially planned to betray Edyon. I felt bad for Edyon, who had no idea about March’s secret and only saw good in him. I wanted to climb into the book and tell March’s dumbass to tell Edyon the truth, as I just knew that the longer he put it off the worse it was going to get. I loved that March started to admit to himself that he had feelings for Edyon, and there were some really sweet moments between them. I loved that they stuck by each other no matter what, and were constantly saving each others lives. The chemistry between these two characters is brilliant,  and I have my fingers crossed that March will do something for Edyon so he’ll be forgiven, as I don’t think I could cope with them hating each other for long!

Sally is extremely good at creating suspense and cliffhangers, and this one ended in a huge cliffhanger! By the end of the book, most of the characters are in some sort of horrible situation, and I have no idea how I’m going to be able to wait for the final book in the series to come out to find out what will happen to everyone! My hopes are that Catherine will defeat her father and take his throne and March and Edyon will make up, live together with Tash as their annoyingly smart little sister and live happily ever after. I mean I can dream,, or write fanfic if everything goes wrong and all my faves die. This series just keeps getting better and better and I will patiently wait until the final book is out!


The Demon World is now available to purchase!

  | Amazon Book Depository



My review on The Smoke Thieves can be found here