The Dreamer's Song by Lynn Kurland is the 11th book in her Nine Kingdoms series, but it is the 2nd in the trilogy starring Acair and Leirsinn. I was saddened by how much this book bored me.
The story line picks up right where The White Spell left off, and I don't really feel like the plot advanced at all in this book. As with I think all of these books (if my memory serves) the characters travel from place to place and hang out in libraries or different person's personal collections looking for more information. The two main characters continuously avoid thinking on subjects that make them uncomfortable (i.e. their feelings for each other), and the female character continues to struggle with the fact that magic is real.
Lerisinn has seen with her own eyes that magic exists. The proof is undeniable, and yet she continues to act like it isn't real and grasps on to naivety tight by "not thinking on it". When I read the first trilogy within this series, this plot line was great. A strong female character who grew up not believing in magic, and she has to come to terms with it's existence. She travels to many places learning more and meeting new people. But that plot line is now being overused in my opinion.
As I said in my review of The White Spell, I was excited to see the new aspects of having a reformed black mage as our hero. I have know determined that I am also disappointed in that aspect. It felt like Kurland was trying to make all of these dark situations be scary, but they ended up being absolutely fine. She overly dramatized different "bad" situations that weren't all that bad, and then when we do finally get to a scene with real danger, everything happens so fast, I had to reread it to figure out what happened.
Honestly, the story may have been decent had I not felt as though I had already read it multiple times in the previous books. However, I felt distrustful of Kurland after the many times the book claimed peril when there was none, and then when the danger was actually there it was downplayed. That partnered with the (to me) unrealistic reactions of her characters confrontations with magic took this book way down for me. This is beyond frustrating because I really used to love Lynn Kurland's storytelling. I am disappointed to say that this book has made me decide to stop reading this series.
**ARC provided by Publisher**
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