SlowReader's Kingdom

Enchanter’s Echo is the second book of the Mayflower Mages series by Anise Rae. I liked this book even better than the first one. It is more action-packed and does not focus as much on the romance as the first book did. Enchanter’s Echo is a great continuation of the series.

Each book of the Mayflower Mages series can be read as a standalone. Though I do recommend reading them in order, since they center on one family and follow a timeline. So in the second book the happenings from the first book will be mentioned and therefore spoiled if you planned to read the first book later. But every book has an ending of its own which is nice for a change.

In Enchanter’s Echo we get to meet “Aurora Firenze [who] lives a quiet life hiding in a junkyard. Her repair shop is the last hope for gadgets and gizmos before they get tossed onto the trash towers. Fortunately, Aurora can fix almost anything, including mages, though repairing people with metal enchantments is highly illegal. Edmund Rallis, heir to the Rallis senate seat, has spent months hunting down his errant enchantress. He’ll play every game he knows to win her back and entice her to share the secrets she hides.” (Goodreads)

This story is a lot more interesting than the murder case in the first book. I was happy to notice, that many problems I had with the first book seemed to be taken care of in the second book. This time the focus was more on finding out who caused the problems in the Rallies territories and the social structures. Learning more about the “black sheep” of the mage system and how they lived was interesting and gave the whole world Rae created more depth. I wish we also had learned more about the terrorist attacks but, unfortunately, they were not mentioned at all.

I was glad that the romance part of the story did not take over. Aurora and Edmund make a cute couple and it was clear from the beginning that the story would be similar to Vince and Bronte’s story. Only this time Rae managed to work the romance into the story. Rae seems to like couples who obviously have feelings for each other but fight an inner battle about giving in to their feelings. Reasons like “I don’t deserve him/her” and “It would never work” are mentioned over and over again. I must admit, I am not the biggest fan of that. I mean, that a character might have doubts is a given but after the character has made a decision I want him or her to stick to that decision and not go back and forth again and again. On a personal note, I would have wished that the romance had not been pre-existing. The love story felt like a repeat of Vince and Bronte.

I had been looking forward to reading more about Edmund after the first book. He seemed like such an interesting character. Unfortunately, he became a little flat in this book. I feel like his interesting character traits fell victim to the love story. For a long time I also could not pinpoint why I felt so disconnected to the story. I had the same problem with the first book but I could not figure it out until now. Rae focuses very much on the two main characters. Almost the whole book is about the two main characters even though so much is going on. We are introduced to minor characters but very often they are only mentioned or have a very short interaction with one of the main characters. I wish Rae would focus more on the side characters especially since she has some great characters on the sideline. There is a lot of potential and it would give the story more background.

Overall I enjoyed Enchanter's Echo very much and I favor it over the first book. The story was faster paced and the romance less overwhelming. I am curious who will be the love interest in the next book. There are some great possibilities and all of them seem interesting. Again I recommend this book to everyone who enjoys a romance book with a well thought-through magical system.

*I want to thank Kensington Books and Netgalley for kindly providing this ARC in return for an honest review*