REVIEW: Bonds of Blood & Spirit: Uncivil Wars (BBS #2)

Bonds of Blood & Spirit: Uncivil Wars (BBS #2)

By Wendi Kelly and Deborah Dorchak

5 out of 5 stars

Synopsis:

For the last six months, Diego Beauchamp had been the rock-solid pillar of support for the Morgan Foundation’s newest Pack. His strong leadership brought Regina and Harry through the most difficult time of their lives and now, he had to do the same for Cole.

Their trip to Portland, Maine was supposed to be nothing more than routine and protocol. Diego had gone through it a few times before with other fledglings. Cole would go before the Council and present his case, and the Council would release him to the Foundation’s custody for further training. Case closed.

But this time everything goes horribly wrong, jeopardizing the very core of the Pack and threatening to expose Diego’s carefully protected secrets and the past he has so carefully tried to forget.

The past won’t be ignored any longer.

My Review:

**MY REVIEWS DO NOT CONTAIN SPOILERS IF YOU HAVE NOT READ PREVIOUS BOOKS IN THE SERIES**

After reading the previous book in this series, I had high hopes and no doubts that this one would be a good one, and I was NOT disappointed!  It was high paced, the previous characters got better than they did in the first book (even though I didn’t think it was possible), and the new characters that were introduced were characters I really loved. In fact, 2 of them may be quickly becoming two of my favorites, just because of their quick wit, and the humor they bring to the table – especially in the tense moments where a little humor can certainly be used!

This book not only kept bringing us forward in the story, but it also brought us back in time, giving us further insight into the characters we know and love. It was exceptionally well done, as it didn’t detract from the story of the current event they were neck deep in – it added to the story, and created more of a story. Without it, the current events would have been much less exciting.

In this book, we get a few feelings of foreshadowing of what’s to come for some of the characters, which drives you even more to read the next book. Yes, there’s a bit of a cliffhanger, but it’s not a bad one.  To be honest, the fact that I know there’s a third book was enough of a cliffhanger for me – the entire time I was reading book 2, it was creating more and more of a need to read book 3 because I loved book 2 so much!

There’s always a worry every time there’s a ‘series’: is it a series because the author just wants to stretch it out to create more books, or is there truly that much story to tell?  I can assure you in this case there is ABSOLUTELY that much story to tell!  In fact, even after book 2, it still feels like the story is just beginning.  After frequently visiting the past in this book (again, in a very well written way), many of these characters feel so much deeper, and the Diego that I loved so much? I love him even more!

One recommendation I do have as a reader, is that if it’s been a while since you’ve read book 1 (it had been about a year and several other books in between for me), if like me, you don’t have a fabulous memory, maybe gloss over the last ¼ or so of the previous book.  There’s so much story to this one, that I don’t think that it was possible for the authors to ‘rehash’ some of the events that happened in the previous book, and at a few points when events or people were mentioned, I had a hard time remembering exactly what happened.  However, it wasn’t so bad that I felt like I was missing anything from this story, and it wasn’t so bad that I went looking for it in the previous book, and just nagged at my curiosity a bit (and made me curse my aging memory).

This book was action, imagination, and information packed, and I didn’t even for a moment have an issue following what was happening. I cannot recommend this book enough, and can’t wait to see what comes next!

Interested? Find this and other books in the series on Goodreads:
https://www.goodreads.com/series/109839-bbs