Been a while since we last checked in on Step and the dogs of Solum. So why not do that right here and now? Spoilers ahead.
We follow a new protagonist, Step's daughter Raven, as she's brought into Solum after having been sent away to live in the mountains for a while. She quickly befriends another Solum dog named Hunter, however finds her relationships with her family to be a bit strained to say the least. Not only that: there's also some mysterious dangerous creatures roaming the canine territories, and a new pack called Arcanum with interesting marks and powers has started to rear its head. Raven takes it upon herself to go investigate these things, which may just end up getting her into a lot more than she bargained for.
What can I say? It's a Dogs of the Spires book, it's good. I really appreciate how all of these so far, including the non-arc books, have been varying between good and great, with not a single mediocre or bad book so far! So props to Summers for that. I've read many a xenofiction series where there's at least one or two bad or at the very least mediocre books in the mix. So the quality being consistently good here is something to be praised.
So let's dive into this goodness, shall we? From the mysteries to Raven herself (a very enjoyable protagonist) and the relationships between the characters. I especially liked seeing the latter. When Raven arrives at Solum, I really expected her to be all buddy-buddy with her family. But it's pretty much the opposite. Her sister is dead, Step has become a ruthless leader who considers his own still living daughter to be the possible re-incarnation of Duke (the main villain of the first three books), Ace is pretty much a Step-bootlicker and Hope loves Raven and doesn't always agree with Step, but still enables him. Pretty far from a perfect happy family. So great subversion there.
Raven herself, like said before, was also a fantastic character. Despite how much she looks like Duke, and she does share some destructive tendencies with him, you can just feel how much she cares. Raven does mess up, she does break the rules, but it's always because she cares about others or trusts her feelings knowing that something isn't right. Meanwhile Duke only cared for himself and power. So there's a nice parallel but also a nice discrepancy between the two.
Honestly, if anyone in this book acts like Duke, it's ironically Step. And this development I also very much enjoyed. In the first arc, especially the last three books, Step already went down a morally-gray slippery slope, committing some pretty questionable acts even if it was often times for the greater good. But this why his development here makes sense. If arc one would've ended with Step as a perfect heroic leader (like Firestar from Warriors, for example), this twist wouldn't have worked at all. It'd have come out of nowhere. But with Step already doing some pretty heinous things in books four through six of arc one, this shift in his personality has been built up perfectly. And also remember that Step went through so much trauma at a very young age, so that'd bound to have changed him somehow (not that it excuses his actions here, though).
Step is now still doing what he does for the sake of his family and Solum (at least, that's what he tells himself), but his methods are just very depraved. He wants the entire Arcanum pack wiped out, or even the non-Arcanum dogs that bear the same mystical glowing markings signifying their power. Heck, he even was pretty much ready to incinerate Hunter, a young dog he raised pretty much as if he were his own son. That's dark stuff, but the development works perfectly. And it's all the more heartbreaking when the only one willing to step up is Raven and nobody has her back, not even her own other family members like Hope and Ace. I guess Auburn is sometimes willing to cut Raven a little bit of slack, but even she doesn't consider standing up to Step.
The whole Arcanum pack is for now still very much a mystery. We know that they have glowing markings and magical powers unlike the Gifts of the Spirits. They also seem to be going through some mental turmoil as this happens, they're led by Alex, and there's another dog among them simply known as "the witch", whoever that might be. But I like the mystery. We'll no doubt find out more about them in later books.
The mystery of what made the clicking noise was also built up nicely and despite the answer being kinda obvious in hindsight after you've read the last book of arc one, I still didn't see coming what they were exactly.
Just an overall very solid first installment in this new arc! I can't wait to get to the other books in it!
Rating: 4/5
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