The Morning Star (Imp #10) by Debra Dunbar

The Morning Star by Debra Dunbar

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


And here we are at the conclusion of this series (spin-offs and cameos from the mains will continue, so says the afterward). I liked what I saw unfold. I like how the series 'concluded'. There was nothing really 'wrong' with this book (beyond massive editing issues, seriously, massive - misspellings, words may or may not have merged together, and other issues - but that, really, plays no part in my rating). I do not rate books 'nothing really wrong with this, so it gets 5 stars'. Books, for me, do not start at five stars then have that rating chipped away at. Books start at no specific rating. Certain things will have me add or subtract a star, but I mostly work on a gut feeling ('this feels like 4 stars, this feels like . . .' with an added touch that I've read several thousand books, rated them, rerated them, massaged my impressions of them, and my gut feeling has a bit of 'this book is slight better than that book, worse that that book over there, therefore, since those two have those ratings, this would fall somewhere between those too books' - occasionally I even deliberately work a books rating out that way, mostly it's gut (which is why I go back through and stare at stuff, and move books up and down the rating shelves, once I've thought about the books more)) .

All of which leads me to: as I noted, good concluding book with some editing issues which play no part in my rating, and nothing really 'wrong' with it. There was also nothing so earth-shattering good that would add extra points to the score. So, gut reaction, this book would fall somewhere around 4.344 stars.

This is the tenth book in the series - it's hard to say much about it because the books do build from one to the next. The characters grow, the story grows. You cannot read book 10 first. You cannot read book 5 first. I'm not going to say that you have to read book 1 first but . . . you kinda do. Mixing in the side books if and when you might desire to do so - you do learn things by reading those books, as I found out. Mostly about the side characters. And how they came together. Technically I probably should have read the side book in between this one and the previous book in this series, the one called . . . it was 'Penance', right? That was the title? Something like that. It was described, self-described at that, as being super depressing so . . . I skipped it.

Oh, and by side-books, I mean the ones starring the major side characters, like the five archangels, and the like. The ones that do not have their own series. The side-series seem to be more filling in some blanks of lower level side characters - at least that's the way it felt. Granted, I am basing that off of mostly skipping the half-breed series (or was it completely skipping it?) and not feeling as if I lost anything from skipping that series.

Right, it's 2 am, my eyes are barely open, and I do not really know what I've written (and, see: eyes barely open, I can't really reread anything at moment).

Good book, good conclusion; not great book, not outstanding book. A book I cannot really describe fully because it is the tenth book in the series, and someone reading the review, to 'get' anything from a more detailed 'this is the setup', would probably need to have a good prior understanding of this series.

Rating: 4.344

June 25 2018



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