This was a strange but pleasant adventure book. A quick and gripping read with rather unique world building.
I definitely recommend this book to all fantasy enthusiasts!

I really loved Beware and Behold!

As this is book two of a trilogy, the characters were all comfortably familiar and had some new twists. I did not find character development to be lacking in any way. Like all trilogies, you’ll want to read book one to not play catch-up in the beginning, but not it’s required to enjoy the story.

The story was a fast paced magical adventure intertwined with a Civil War era hellscape, where the protagonist and her best friend risk it all to rescue her imprisoned lover who is stuck in a hellish vision of his own distant past. The ‘adventure story’ feels like a darker, more dangerous Alice in Wonderland replete with magic forests, steam punk themes, and Civil War relics. The ‘journey through hell’ is more of a psychological thriller, where the hero is imprisoned almost within his own mind, and must work through the tricks and mind games subjected on him by the antagonist, who is his own demonic brother.

I found the writing style to be very refreshing. One moment could feel like a quaint romantic Disney movie, the next could be a macabre Tim Burton.

The aspect of the book I liked the most was the dialogue. I laughed out loud at a few of Rebeca’s comments, and thought the interplay between the 3 ghost cadets was very clever and well done.

All in all I found the story to be very enjoyable, and would consider it a ‘page turner’. You definitely lose yourself while reading it!

My fault for not reading the tiny letters and seeing this is actually a part two (they should really put that at the beginning of the blurb so it’s obvious), so I had to go on a search for the first book—which is surprisingly hard to find (in my country, anyway.) I read the first 20 pages or so of the first part which… bored me. So I didn’t buy it.