Review: Emerald Blaze

Emerald Blaze by Ilona Andrews
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

2.7 stars 

I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. 

“One of these fuckers killed my boy,” he told me in a hoarse whisper loud enough for everyone in the room to hear. “You find which one of them did it.” 

Emerald Blaze continues the focus on Catalina Baylor in the overall urban fantasy world of the Hidden Legacy series. Continued readers will know that Catalina is a Prime and the Head of House Baylor while also being the Deputy Warden of Texas. Catalina's power is a siren, her singing can lure beings to do her bidding but is a double edged sword as it can also make them deadly obsessed with her. While her love interest Alessandro, an antistasi Prime, one of the most powerful, with the power to conjure a copy of any weapon within a certain amount of distant to him, shows up earlier in this story, their romance still took a backseat to the action and political maneuverings. 

Sometimes I felt like a spider who'd spun a web across a bottomless drop. My family was walking across, balancing on hair-thin strands, and it was my job to keep them from falling. 

Like the first, Catalina and Alessandro must work together again to solve and stop murders and villainous beings. Linus, the Warden of Texas and a possible closer connection to Catalina than she realizes, assigns Catalina the task of finding out who murdered Felix, a man on the board of five who are working to clean up the Pit. The Pit is a section of Houston that was abandoned after Hurricane Ike destroyed it years ago. Sapphire Flames left off with Alessandro leaving to continue his search and revenge on an assassin named Arkan, the man who killed his father, but he suddenly shows up at a business meeting Catalina has with the remaining four board members and suspects of Felix's murder. Turns out that Felix's father hired Alessandro to find Felix's murderer and kill them. It works to bring Catalina and Alessandro together and set them off on another mystery solving adventure. 

“Catalina,” he repeated. His voice told me he wasn't going to budge on that point. “I'm sorry I hurt you.” 

I started late in the series, and thus world-building, so while I get the general aspects of the fantasy elements, I'm can still get a little lost. This story focused a lot on the weapons, magical beings, and battles. Through their investigation, they learn that The Pit has creatures they've never seen before, some called constructs that were made and some that possibly came from the arcane realm. The biggest issue is the constructs and the main monster that Catalina calls the Abyss. The Abyss was obviously created with the help of some of the missing Osiris serum (a continued plot thread) and it appears to be unstoppable and all it wants to do is grow and destroy all human life. So, our leads are trying to solve a murder, find out who created the Abyss while trying to figure out how to destroy it, fend of Arkan's killers he keeps throwing at them, keep one step ahead of Catalina's grandmother Victoria who while jailed is still dangerous with all her seeds and plots, and oh, maintain family, friend, and love relationships. 

The Abyss stole humans, killed them, and used their bodies and minds to create hybrid constructs. This was a nightmare. 

There were a couple times where my mind started to wander when all the weapons talk got going and there were a lot of little battles in this. I would have liked to see more depth developed between Catalina and Alessandro, it still feels like they just woke up one day and were like “I love you!”. Alessandro was a little different in this one with a more subdued personality and we get to know more about him. We learn more about why he's set on killing Arkan, his family, and his relationship with them. His background sets him perfectly to fit in with Catalina and her promise to her grandmother, so with that conflict out of the way in this book, I'm curious what their relationship will be like in their third and final book. 

He looked at me like I was everything that anchored him to life. 

Even with all the action, we still get a good look at the Baylor family. Nevada comes back into the picture in this one and I loved the scenes she had with Catalina and it made me really wish for more scenes of all three of the sisters together. This was so focused on the action that I wanted more of the human element and their relationships to bring in the feels more. The tone wasn't quite cold and empty but it did feel emotionally distant at times, which I found a shame because at it's essence, this is a story about family. 

“I'm not leaving.” 

The ending gave us a consummation between Catalina and Alessandro and a huge explosive battle scene. This specific case of finding out who murdered Felix and the trouble at The Pit has been solved but the dangling threads of Arkan, the other missing samples of the Osiris serum, and devious grandmother Victoria are still left hanging. I'm looking forward to the conclusion of Catalina and Alessandro's series but I also hope the last story brings in more of the heart of the series and it's characters.

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