Top positive review
4.0 out of 5 starsBook 5: The end game begins for Jade and her friends - Make sure you read Book 5, 6 and 7 together
Reviewed in the United States on June 29, 2022
The pacing from the last couple of books continues to pick up in this fifth book of The Twenty-Sided Sorceress series by Annie Bellet. There is rarely any downtime in ‘Heartache’ with our heroes careening rapidly from one crisis to the next. We are moving into the endgame of Jade dealing with her ex-lover Samir. The battle lines have been drawn as each side play’s their final moves and only one thing is certain, no-one is going to make it through the encounter unscathed. Now before I go into too much detail, I want to recommend that you read the next three books as if it were one. Considering they are still novella’s, putting them together pretty much yields an average size book. ‘Heartache’ runs at a little under 250 pages and took me around 2 hours to read.
We start several weeks after the events of Book 4, ‘Hunting Season’, to find that Jade’s friends have been called away or otherwise occupied, leaving Jade isolated.
‘That formerly errant thought, which had been like snowflake and smoke before, crystallized.
Brie’s shop shut down. Ciaran recalled to Ireland. Alek sent to New Orleans. The internet in town being spotty, forcing Harper away from the store more.
All these things leaving me here. Alone.’
Then, just as Jade understands the danger she is in, Samir casually walks into her shop setting off the chain of events that will put everything she cares about at risk. As per the title, ‘Heartache’, Jade experiences several losses through the book. She loses both people and property in Samir’s attempt to punish her. Some of the losses I am frankly not okay with but understand it is Ms Bellet way of showing the escalating consequences of Samir’s actions and why Jade must go to any length to stop him.
Her ‘Scooby’ gang come together to help stop Samir not realising that he is playing a long game and there is more at stake than they realise. As the losses keep piling up, each character experiences his or her heartache but have no time to process the emotional toll.
‘It was not better to have loved and lost. The poet got that totally wrong.
It was better to love and win.’
There is less levity in this book than there has been in the previous entries. Still, plenty of references to D&D, board games, video games, and general nerd culture, but the stakes have been heightened and the flippancy of our ‘Scooby’ gang is decidedly missing.
As the emotional gut punches continue, we rush into a finale that has a sudden and considerable cliff-hanger. Enough that if I hadn’t already downloaded Book 6, ‘Thicker Than Blood’, I may have had several choice words to say. So maybe the ‘heartache’ was for the readers in the past who had to wait for the next book to be released? All in all, this is a great read, an emotional rollercoaster where the stakes keep intensifying. If you have enjoyed the rest of the series you will love ‘Heartache’, just remember to have Book 6, ‘Thicker Than Blood’, and Book 6, Magic to the Bone’ ready to go as they do work together as the conclusion to the Samir storyline.
A very solid 4 out of 5 stars!
