The Invocations by Krystal Sutherland

e-Audio, 13:14:03
Narrated by: Kit Griffiths
Release Date: January 30, 2024
Published by: Nancy Paulsen Books
Read from: January 12-14, 2024
Stand-alone 
Source: PRH App
TW: Blood, Murder, Injury/Injury Detail, Body Horror, Death of a Parent, Violence, Pregnancy, Addiction, Child Death
For Readers Interested In: Witches, Romance, 2SLGBTQ+, Dark, Mystery, YA

    From the author of New York Times bestseller House of Hollow comes a darkly seductive witchy thriller where, though both men and demons lurk in shadows, girls refuse to go quietly into the night.
     Zara Jones believes in magic because the alternative is too painful to bear—that her sister was murdered by a serial killer and there is precisely nothing she can do to change it. If there’s anything Zara cannot stand it’s feeling powerless, so she decides she will do whatever it takes—even if that means partaking in the occult—to bring her sister back from the dead.
     Jude Wolf might be the daughter of a billionaire, but she is also undeniably cursed. After a deal with a demon went horribly wrong, her soul is now slowly turning necrotic. Flowers and insects die in her wake and monstrous things come to taunt her at night. If Jude can’t find the right someone to fix her mistake, she fears she’ll die very soon.
     Enter Emer Bryne: the solution to both Zara’s and Jude’s predicaments. The daughter of a witch, Emer sells spells to women in desperate situations willing to sacrifice a part of their soul in exchange for a bit of power, a bit of magic to change their lives. But Emer has a dark past all her own—and as her former clients are murdered one-by-one, she knows it’s followed her all the way to London.
     As Zara and Jude enter Emer’s orbit, they’ll have to team up to stop the killer—before they each end up next on his list.

*MY THOUGHTS*

When I saw this book I was hella excited. Idk what it is about this cover, but it sucked me in. And tho I liked it, I did think the amount of POVs is what made me give this what I did. It wasn’t bad, but I think it could have been better.

I think the amount of POVs is what killed this for me. Normally I wouldn’t mind multiple POVs as I’m a character driven reader, but with this one, they all started sounding the same. Bitter, and angry, and wanting revenge. I need some kind of difference between them. And again, normally that would be cool with me, but this just didn’t work for me.

The mystery was well written tho which is why I kept reading this. I didn’t guess who it was and I remember being like WTF and rewinding it like 4 times when I got to the reveal. I was not expecting it at all. Definitely caught me off guard and had me wondering if I had missed some info in the book that could have clued me in because Lordt knows it’s been a long time since I was THAT blindsided by a reveal. And for me, that means it was legit because I usually always catch them lol

I DID like the way it was dark and atmospheric, but I wish there was more descriptive language. She didn’t go into detail until the was about the body horror and the spells. And while that’s cool, it made the rest of the book feel slow and boring. Like they weren’t always doing a spell or whatever, so it didn’t have the same thrill. I guess I needed more world-building. It was doing all of these spells and magic, and there’s slayers and stuff, but what about the rest of the world? I just never felt completely encompassed in the story. Is this something that all people think about when reading? Am I just supposed to make up the rules on my own? It just seemed too open ended for me lol

This wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t what I was expecting either. I loved some aspects and thought some others were lacking. Don’t let what I say deter you from reading it. It was fine, just wasn’t exactly what I was expecting.

Overall, I give this