Title: Luminous
Author: Mara Rutherford
Publisher: Inkyard Press
Publication date: October 5, 2021
Amazon | Barnes and Noble | Bookshop.org | Book Depository | Goodreads | StoryGraph
Summary
Liora has a magical gift that makes her skin glow. So, she’s spent most of her life hiding from the king’s warlock, Darius, who collects mages’ power to grow his own. When he shows up in her town, she thinks he’s finally gotten to her. However, it’s her sister that he takes back to the castle instead. To make matters worse, her best friend Evran disappear as well.
In order to save them both, Liora must finally learn to use the power that always kept her afraid. That has always kept her from reaching her full potential. However, it appears that Darius has something even darker planned than Liora could have ever imagined. And she’s the only one who can stop him.
Review: Luminous
Thanks to NetGalley and Inkyard Press for an advanced copy of this to review! You all know YA Fantasy is one my jams, so I was interested by the summary on this one. Unfortunately, it ended up being kind of a mixed bag for me.
One of the things that this has going for it is it’s an incredibly quick read. It’s easy to jump into the world, and Rutherford really brings you into this world without bogging you down with too many details. Those kinds of fantasies are great if you’re looking for something quick and magical!
However, a lot of the plot felt too familiar in regard to other popular YA fantasy books. I felt it didn’t do enough to distinguish itself from other books in this genre, especially Shadow and Bone. There were too many similarities for me to get too engaged in the book.
Also, I wanted more character development. There are a lot of characters introduced, and none of them are really in-depth characters. They mostly feel surface level. As someone who reads for character, this meant it was difficult for me to really engage with the story.
All in all, this one was a bit of a miss for me. But that cover is still really cool!
3/5 stars
Ooh, I like the sound of this one! I think it is easy to write something similar to other popular series, though again it’s also easy to make the book different, even with the similarities to other popular series. All to do with how the author write, I suppose. And a ton of editing.
True! I don’t mind books that have similar tropes/feelings, but I just wanted more character development in this one! I think it would have helped in pulling it away from some of the books it felt similar to. It has been getting some pretty good reviews, though!