Rating: 3 stars
Buy Link: Amazon | iBooks | Amazon UK
Length: Novel
Phil Torres’s sensitivity is off the charts, and no one knows why. Shige plans a trip for them to go to Japan so that Phil can maybe get some answers and some help. But Phil is wary about going on trip like that with Shige. After the events with Pampa, Shige has been distant. Not exactly treating him like a stranger, but certainly not like a lover, and Phil is unsure of where they stand.
Shige knows he can never make up for what happened to Phil, and he’s certainly not worthy of Phil’s time and attention. But that doesn’t mean Shige is willing to let Phil go or to not keep him safe. In Japan, old contacts get in touch with Shige, and he finds the situation there much more dire than he thought. But one good thing is that he and Phil finally have a long needed conversation, and reconnect.
But there are more questions than there are answers, and though Phil finally has a hold on his abilities, there are much darker forces at work.
Okay, so, after I finished Nasu, I was looking forward to seeing what happened next in the Blood Sealed series. Phil is a great character, and though Shige is too secretive for my liking, I very much liked them together and wanted to see the next step in their journey. These books definitely need to be read in order, and both end with a cliffhanger. That’s not a problem for me, and I was definitely interested. However, to say that I was disappointed in Enrai may be a bit of an understatement.
The lack of world building continues here. In fact, there’s a line where Phil thinks about all the paranormal creatures and how they have their own hierarchy and culture. Except, we hardly see it at all. I would love to know about these things, but the information is distinctly lacking, which inhibits my enjoyment greatly.
I really liked seeing Phil and Shige finally have the conversation that they so needed to have, and their reconnection and commitment feels real and believable. That said, it’s a small part of the story and not enough to really elevate the total of the book. If there had been more of them together, it would have upped my rating. But there’s not.
And that leads me to Shige. I know the author is using his secretiveness as a tool to keep the reader in suspense, but it just doesn’t work for me. Basically, there’s tons of information that is hinted at, but the “I’ll tell you later” excuse only goes so far. There’s not enough plausible reasoning for withholding the information from Phil and from the reader, and instead of working as an incentive to find out more, it just made me frustrated that again and again, we’re denied crucial information.
The typos continue in this book, but they are far fewer and, again, mostly misplaced and erroneous words. I can forgive that for the most part. But the style of writing here didn’t work as well for me. The plot seemed disjointed at certain parts, there were a lot of characters that weren’t properly introduced so I didn’t always know who was who or what purpose they served, and there’s just not enough information to have a well-rounded plot.
All in all, Enrai read like a interlude between larger stories, and while that’s not always a bad thing, it didn’t work here for me. I was seriously lacking the information I wanted and needed, and I didn’t feel like enough loose ends were tied up even as new problems were presented. I probably wouldn’t recommend this story, and I don’t think I’ll be continuing on with the series.
