Name: A Season of Sinister Dreams
ISBN: 9780316460408

Tracy Banghart

"Annalise must wield her magical powers of persuasion carefully in order to become the queen of Tyne. Nonmagical Evra discovers she's a Clearsee who receives mysterious visions of the past and future. Told in alternating points of view, the young women must decide whom to trust"--

A Season of Sinister Dreams

Paige Green

Disclaimer: I received this arc from the publisher. Thanks! All opinions are my own.

Book: A Season of Sinister Dreams

Author: Tracy Banghart

Book Series: Standalone for now

Rating: 3.5/5

Recommended For...: found family, romance, fantasy, YA readers

Genre: YA Fantasy

Publication Date: June 22, 2021

Publisher: Little Brown Books for Young Readers

Pages: 402

Recommended Age: 14+ (Death, Implications of sex, Violence, Gore, Grief)

Explanation of CWs: Death - before and during book and includes parental and sibling death
Implication of Sex - one of the MCs sleeps with another character and wakes up in bed with him

Synopsis: Annalise may be cousin to the prince, but her past isn’t what she claims, and she possesses a magic so powerful it takes all her strength to control it. Evra is a country girl, and has watched as each friend and family member came into their own magic, while hers remains dormant. But everything changes after Annalise loses control of herself and Evra begins experiencing the debilitating visions of a once-in-a-generation clairvoyant meant to serve the crown.

Thrown together at court, Evra and Annalise find that they have the same goal: to protect their kingdom from the powerful men who are slowly destroying it. But neither is quick to trust the other — Evra’s visions suggest a threat to royal rule, and Annalise worries that her darkest secrets will be revealed. Their magic at odds, the young women circle each other, until the truth must come out.

Review: For the most part I thought that this was an okay book. I like the characters, Evra was my favorite. I thought that, while they could have been a bit more developed especially some of the side characters, that the author did pretty good at developing them. I also have to give praise to the author who wrote a surprise villain into the story. I thought that it was weird that the character was wrote like a villain, until it turned out she was lol. I also really like the plot of this book and I hope to see a sequel to it in the future.

However, there were a lot of things that I really didn't like about this book. The book took a bit for me to get into for Annalise's side because I was not able to really connect with her character. I also found the magic system to not be explained whatsoever and the World building overall was not well developed whatsoever. One of the most important parts of the book, where a character is turned into some sort of beast, is very poorly written in my opinion. It took me so long to figure out what happened to that character and then it took me even longer to get some sort of details as to what the character had been turned into AKA what kind of beast. I also found the romance was too speedy and too "first look" cliche.

Verdict: It was a good idea but needs more development.