Review: Wizard Of Ends: Dark Creature

Just over a year ago I reviewed book one in the Wizard of Ends series

and I had planned to review book two shortly after. Of course that means that I'm finally getting around to doing it about a year late. This is in keeping with precedent for the series. Check out the previous review to see what I mean.

Dark Creature picks up from the cliffhanger at the end of Wizard of Ends. The Queen of Ends has been cursed into a creature of darkness. Only Rune Arcana might be able to remove the curse. Lashlor believes he can find Rune in the Mountains of Eclador. The only trouble is – Rune now despises him, and, in all of recorded history, no one has ever returned from these mountains. Fearing the Wizard of Ends will not be able to bring help, the king goes against Lashlor’s advice by enlisting the aid of other magic users.

This book is more of a traditional quest than the previous entry but that's not a bad thing. The plotting is excellent and the characters dance across the pages. Last year I said that the two books read as one and I still stand by that. They could easily be edited together with no sign that they were originally separate novellas. I love this book except for, once again, the cliffhanger ending. My problem last time was that I felt that the story wasn't over but this time it felt like the ending was tacked on after the credits, so to speak. The author could have just left it out and I would still be looking forward to book three.

The bottom line here is, if you've read the first book this one is a must. If you haven't, well in that case, you'd better grab them both and just consume them consecutively.

Vanessa Finaughty Bio:

Vanessa Finaughty is an author of many genres who now focuses on fantasy and science fiction. She’s published 15 books, of which 6 are fantasy. Vanessa grew up in Cape Town, South Africa, and still lives there with her husband of fifteen years, her baby daughter and plenty of furry, four-legged ‘children’. Vanessa has always been passionate about books, and knew from a young age that she wanted to write them one day. She loves animals, coffee and the smell of wet grass, and hates liars, sweltering weather and long queues. Her interests include reading, photography, the supernatural, mythology, aliens and outer space, ancient history, life’s mysteries and martial arts, of which she has five years’ experience.