Robin (Bridge Four)'s Reviews > Bringer of Dust

This review was originally posted on Books of My Heart

Review copy was received from NetGalley. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Bringer of Dust is the second book in the The Talents trilogy, picking up almost directly after the events in Ordinary Monsters.  With the addition of a few new PoV characters and villains there will be a lot of tension, gruesomeness and obstacles to overcome for the characters.  I would think of this as a mash up of  Umbrella Academy, Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children and His Dark Materials set in Victorian London.

I wish I read Ordinary Monsters right before starting the book as it would have helped the story be fresh in my mind and while I think I got the gist of it, with some of the recaps through character interactions, it took a long time to get there.  When you have a book that is ~600 pages long, I think sometimes it is smart to do a "the story so far" at the beginning to set the reader up for success.  Still the story itself is interesting enough with hints of the first book here and there that I don't think I felt lost and eventually was reminded of enough of the key points by midway through that I did okay.

Characters, they are the thing that make this story great.  I love Charlie from the first book and his desperation to save Marlowe from the terrible fate that became him.  Even if that means he has to go through a portal into a strange realm where most mortal people die.  With the help of friends, old and new, he will try to find another portal to save his friend.

The addition of The Abbess and Cracker Jack as new villains with some horrible minions, the level of the gruesomeness and horror aspects of Bringer of Dust definitely surpass the previous book.  In this world, there are some truly terrible people willing to do horrendous things.  Charlie seems to nice to be in a world like this but he will reach to protect those he cares about.  I loved the addition of the Bone Witch talent and how her storyline eventually connects to Charlie and his search for Marlowe.

The only thing in the story that threw me off was about the middle of the book shifts gears and get to spend time with Marlowe and Berghast's in the 'other' realm.  This is a great way to learn about the prison created to contain the biggest bad in the book, but it seemed like it went back in time to when we started with Charlie and the other new characters.  It took awhile to shift gears, but this was a great way to get some more of the backstory and find out some of the history of both the prison and the prisoner.

Overall this is going to work well for people who love horror and grimdark and don't mind a really long story if it is interesting.  There is plenty of action and things that make you fear for all of the characters.  Expansion of the lore behind the story along with some set up for the final book, that will be a pretty epic showdown from what has been hinted at.  There are some end-of-the-world type of huge stakes at hand.

I think Bringer of Dust does a few things better than the first book.  The pacing was actually a lot better, the characters and world better established and the twist just as intense if not more.

Narration:
Ben Onwukwe is a seasoned narrator and seems pretty perfect for this grimdark tale.  His voice and cadence fits the tone of the story and builds on some of the suspense and drama of it.  He has a great voice and did really well with the large cast of characters.  I was able to listen at my usual 1.5x speed.

Listen to a clip: HERE