Sword of Deaths - Christopher Mannino

[goodreads]

Title: Sword of Deaths (The Scythe Wielder's Secret #2)
Author: Christopher Mannino
Genre: Fantasy
Rating: 2.5/5
# pages: 263
Date read: April 2016

Susan Sarnio made a choice, and will spend the rest of her life as the only female Death. Last year she was bullied and ostracized. Now, to her complete bewilderment, four Deaths vie for her affection. Yet, something is terribly wrong at the College of Deaths. When a ship carrying scythe metal is attacked, many blame the newly-freed Elementals, but Susan knows the Elementals are innocent.

Shadows from the distant past come to light. Dragons circle the horizon, blood spills, and nothing is what it seems. Susan and her friends struggle to stop a war. They search for the fabled First Scythe, hoping to sway the balance, but who is the true enemy?


While the first book in the series was pure genius, this sequel unfortunately couldn't deliver at all. The writing wasn't nearly as tight and often confusing, with lots of needless repetitions (yes, everybody's hot for Susan - we get it already!), and a plot that didn't really take off until about 20 pages before the end, so we're left with a cliffhanger, and resolutions that won't happen until the next book. I was especially frustrated by the lack of follow-up on what happened to Tom. That was such a brilliant idea, but other than a brief comment from Frank, the reader was just left hanging. Hopefully this will be brought up again in the next book.

The first book was obviously the first in a series, but still nicely contained, leaving the reader eager to read the next book, but not terribly frustrated by a ton of loose threads left hanging. A shame Mannino couldn't repeat that excellent bit of writing for the second book.

I still want to read the last book, in the hopes that Mannino will redeem himself. But I'm no longer as excited about it, as I was before reading this one.