A Season of Sinister Dreams by Tracy Banghart

The Quick Cut: Two girls do what they can to protect their kingdom and take it out of the hands of men who are slowly destroying it.

A Real Review: There is nothing truly new under the sun. No matter how spectacular a book or story idea may be, there is a very good chance you can find a similar one that already exists and has been published. So then why do we enjoy stories so much? Sometimes the details tell us something new that we never thought of before. Or maybe it gives us different perspective. With the story of Annalise and Evra, the plot that unfolded felt like nothing more than deja vu. Annalise is the cousin to the prince with a secret to hide. She has a powerful magic that she spends a lot of her time trying to keep under control. However, it gets out of control and in one moment, everything changes. Evra is a country girl of no special place. However, when the magicless girl suddenly finds herself having strong visions, she finds out that she is something much more special. These two girls, who were on very different paths, suddenly find themselves together in the palace trying to end the control of men who are slowly taking down their country. Are they stronger together? Or will they bring about one another's end? I wanted to love this story because I so much enjoyed the author's novel, Grace & Fury. That love for her original work is interestingly enough the reason why I ended up thoroughly annoyed by her most recent one. On every level, this book feels like a knockoff of Grace & Fury. Both novels feature two leading ladies with a dual narrative, a slightly sexist kingdom in the need of strong women to take charge, and interesting hurdles getting in the way of a better world. While Grace & Fury didn't have magic at its fingertips, it did have the much more likable sister act of Serena and Nomi. This book made me miss them very much. Annalise is kind of a brat. She's a royal who has no control over her future and knows it. I get the reason why, but that's not the issue. It doesn't really feel like she grows or develops at all during the story. The way she is written, it just seems like she gets what she wants and that is justified because its what's best for most people. That's not a good reason to do something. She felt so flat that without some reason to humanize and support her, she feels like a villain. Evra isn't any better though because she's the opposite of Annalise. She knows nothing of how the world works and its clear she's more than a little naive. She's completely out of her element and because of that - it made me wish she would struggle. It just seemed like we needed more characters between the two extremes of these characters. They enraged me for different reasons, but not at different levels of frustration. A story that doesn't feel like new territory for the author. My rating: 2 out of 5