mothumn's reviews
377 reviews

Thank you Tor for the gifted ARC in return for my honest review.

Unfortunately, this was a bit of a disappointment for me. It’s a very straightforward classic dragon story; a knight is on a quest to prove themself by defeating a powerful dragon and retrieving a magic sword for its den. The thing is, it was just too straightforward to be very compelling, at least for me. There was some interesting elements added, like flashbacks that expanded the world a bit and some pieces of inworld history of past knights on dragon quests. I’m a bit conflicted on whether I think the history tidbits even really added to the story or if they could have just been omitted to up the pace. The ending improve my rating however, while I had predicted some of the twists pretty early on, the story took a turn that I wasn’t expecting and made me much more interested in reading the sequel when it comes out than I was before. Unfortunately, that came way at the end and didn’t fix the slow pacing and unremarkable plot that plagued the majority of the story, but it was definitely an improvement.

Thank you Angry Robot for the gifted arc in return for my honest review!

Evocation, S.T. Gibson’s newest book and the first in a new series, is a paranormal contemporary urban fantasy, filled with tarot cards, secret societies, generational curses, demons, ghosts, and complicated people and relationships. I’ve heard a few people very appropriately describe it as an adult Raven Boys, but think if The Raven Boys was more focused on the witchy parts and Blue’s family, and also more queer.

I really enjoyed this book. I was initially pulled in by the premise but what ended up really captivating me were the characters. Evocation doesn’t rush past the seemingly small moments in the characters lives, you spend a lot of time observing the characters, as they bond and grow together in this relationship. Despite the story only taking place within a fairly short amount of time, the result is that you know these characters and care about them despite their (many) flaws. I really loved David, Rhys, and Moira, and the dynamics between them, the complicated and complex feelings they have for each other. It is just something so special to get to spend time with characters in such an intimate way like S.T. Gibson allows you to in this book. I can’t wait for the series to continue so we can get to see them truly flourish.

Evocation is surprisingly short in length, coming in at just under 300 pages, and as I said, a lot of that time is spent getting to know the characters, which I loved especially as a fan of character focused fantasy. But I felt that the plot ended up being sidelined a bit, which is unfortunate because it’s pretty interesting and also very intertwined with the characters. From the beginning, David is sick with a long running generational curse that has finally caught up to him and from there the story begins. When David has no choice but to call upon his former friend and ex Rhys who is now married to Moira to help him. It’s evident that the sickness that he is suffering from is serious, but for a lot of the book it felt like we were only given glimpses of its actual physical effects on David and those around him. I would have loved to have the story to show more of the ugliness and horror potential that a story like this has, adding to the stakes. By the climax when everything is going down, I didn’t end up feeling as on the edge of my seat as I had hoped because we never really saw the curse to be as dangerous and scary as I thought it was supposed to be. I never really worried that everything wouldn’t work out, because the plot felt more like a stepping stone for the relationships between characters.

Despite my issues, I still really enjoyed Evocation and can’t wait to see where it will go in the future instalments. It has a lot of room to grow and I’m really hoping that it will lean into the darker aspects of the story that I know S.T. Gibson is more than capable of delivering on. I would definitely recommend checking Evocation out when it comes out at the end of the month. I think it will especially be a hit for fans of The Raven Boys, the Craft, and Practical Magic.

Evocation is out on May 28!

happily surprised to find i liked this even though i previously didnt like olivie blakes atlas series (dnfed the second book cause i really just couldn’t do it) and also just not typically a romance fantasy or romeo & juliet fan 

my library loan was overdue 💔