Seasonal Fears | Book 2 of Alchemical Journeys | ARC Review

Thank you to Netgalley and Tor for the review copy in exchange for an honest review. This does not change my opinion in anyway.

 Book: Seasonal Fears (Alchemical Journeys 2) by Seanan McGuire
Release Date: May 3rd 2022
Tags: Adult | Fantasy | Seasons | Summer | Winter
Trigger/Content Warnings: Murder | Human Experimentations
Other books in this series I reviewed
Middlegame

Melanie has a destiny, though it isn’t the one everyone assumes it to be. She’s delicate; she’s fragile; she’s dying. Now, truly, is the winter of her soul.

Harry doesn’t want to believe in destiny, because that means accepting the loss of the one person who gives his life meaning, who brings summer to his world.

So, when a new road is laid out in front of them—a road that will lead through untold dangers toward a possible lifetime together—walking down it seems to be the only option.

But others are following behind, with violence in their hearts.

It looks like Destiny has a plan for them, after all….

Seasonal Fears was a long awaited sequel for many Middlegame lovers. I can’t say I was a lover of Middlegame but I certainly enjoyed it for what it was. I’m not sure I can say the same for Seasonal Fears.

The book introduces us Melanie and Harry, childhood sweet hearts. Melanie is seriously ill however, a heart condition. Life seems fairly simple outside of that but when both go down at the football field, a whole new world opens up for them. Possible reincarnations of Summer and Winter and a scheming father.

A lot stands and falls with me when it comes to characters. And in this case I was not grabbed by our two characters. Neither Melanie or Harry grabbed me in anyway. They just kept feeling like these teenage stereotypes of supposed true love. I just didn’t care for either of them and none of the side characters were very interesting.

Even the entry of our Middlegame characters felt stereotypical. They didn’t quite feel like the characters I got to know in the previous book.

The story itself is interesting. Reincarnations of the seasons is a rather interesting take that has always drawn many towards it like elemental magic. That there are many possibilities, and different ones on different continents I like. Different continents have different ways with seasons and if you are going to have human reincarnations it makes sense to deal with that.

However I found the ending itself, the actual choosing of the reincarnations, weak.