Series: Everlife #2
My Firstlife is over, but my Everlife is only now beginning.
With her last living breath, Tenley “Ten” Lockwood made her choice and picked her realm in the Everlife. Now, as the war between Troika and Myriad rages, she must face the consequences.
Because Ten possesses a rare supernatural ability to absorb and share light, the Powers That Be have the highest expectations for her future—and the enemy wants her neutralized. Fighting to save her Secondlife, she must learn about her realm from the ground up while launching her first mission: convincing a select group of humans to join her side before they die. No pressure, right?
But Ten’s competition is Killian, the boy she can’t forget—the one who gave up everything for her happiness. He has only one shot at redemption: beating Ten at a game she’s never even played. As their throw-downs heat up, so do their undeniable feelings, and soon, Ten will have to make another choice. Love…or victory.
3 Drink Me Potions
Lifeblood is a middle book that made me wish it was the first book. Filled with better world building – or should I say afterlife building? – and more kickass characters, this sequel was everything I wished book 1 contained.
Ten Lockwood, girl wonder that fits your mold of a special snowflake protagonist who’s invaluable to the central plot of the story, annoyed me less this time around. Which is a gigantic feat to accomplish. Her over-obsession with numbers and counting literally everything around her wasn’t overtly used, although that’s not say that it wasn’t still very much present in her life. However, I could say that she grew drastically as a character since last we saw of her. No longer is the indecisive girl who couldn’t choose between the 2 afterlife realms. This is a young woman with her whole being set on the Troikan values.
To keep this short and sweet, there weren’t many highlights aside from these things. I didn’t mind the info dump that occurred since Ten went to Troika as this was what I had wanted to know from the start . It was imaginative and well-described to the point that I felt I could navigate Troika myself. We get some info about the enemy realm, Myriad, and their history together too, so don’t you go worrying about lack of information there.
Both familiar characters and new ones play bigger roles here. The hot Troikan labourer, Deacon, and possibly your least favourite character, Sloan, are both still kicking, and even fallen characters who succumbed to Second Death aren’t necessarily gone for good (*hint hint*). We finally get a sense of the bigger picture now as Ten prepares to join in on this war between the realms. It’s finally pumping my blood a little at how this whole chaotic thing is gonna end.
I’m guessing Ten’s special powers have something to do with it. There’s minimal information about what exactly she can possibly do, but I suppose that’s why we have a book 3, right?
So world building and some minor character development helped with this rating as it took me forever to finish this book. What I still couldn’t really stand for was the romance . I mean, he’s hot and all and there’s apparently physical chemistry going on there, but for the life of me, I just am feeling nothing when it comes to Killian. He’s too textbook bad boy with a sad past that makes him a papercut-out copy of too many love interests for me to care. If you came here for the romance, I will say there’re plenty of little fun scenes where they do manage to get together, but if you just want everything else aside from it, no worries. You can totally skip those scenes as fast as possible without losing too much relevant information!
While the above states some of the more trivial things that I liked or not-so-much liked about Lifeblood, there was one thing that really got to me. I absolutely adored the underlying message in this book. To love even those that are hard to love or may not really deserve it. To forgive. To never give up on those who can be saved. These themes make this novel more than just your average book and for that I finished it.
Overall Recommendation:
Lifeblood was the kind of sequel that excelled beyond what the first book gave us. With plenty of war action between the realms and yes, even hot little romantic scenes, this book definitely had more of everything I was looking for. Both familiar and new characters will surprise you as the momentum builds for the conclusion. Although I wasn’t considered a fan of this series before, I think Lifeblood may have just convinced me to see it through.
Down the Rabbit Hole 