The Demon Tide

I enjoyed the first two books. The third and fourth were progressively bad. I skimmed book 4 because nothing happened. I wanted a strong heroine but I got a scared, weak one for most of the book. Then there was a love fest, then she got sucked into an abyss and came out fine. No battle to overcome her fears. The storyline was bad.

Read the first two books then move on. Bummed cuz I usually like this author.

This book is laced with the woke agenda. It was unbearable to read, which is sad because the storyline had a lot of potential.

I am stunned. This series started out so strong, but it progressively declined in quality. This book was a mess because it no longer seemed to be about the story or moving the story forward. For example, we took a long detour into festival romances that should have been a stand-alone collection in a novella. Also, social agendas were too strong in this book. As a conservative reader, I can deal with reading about some woke characters, but this book went way too far. The political agenda completely overrode the story. Yes, the theme is about the dangers of prejudice and racism, but it got to the point of practically being best on the head with it. How is one supposed to track and enjoy the stories and characters when this happens? Also, the story became unbelievable. About midway, I came to feel that the antagonist was too powerful to be beat. He could lay waste to entire cities and populations with a wave of his wand. Nothing logical seemed to be working and the heroine was too weak, emotionally and physically, to prevail. Readers are repeatedly told she is the most powerful witch ever. We even see her burn down a swath of forest with a twig, but oddly, she could barely hold her own elsewhere throughout the book. It just didn’t sync and drew on and on and on. Finally, the ending was odd. It just kind of ended. Maybe there is another book coming, but at this point, I don’t care how the tree and the new owner of the wand will prevail.