Title: The Tank
Series: The Spell Saga: Book Three
Author: Cari Z
Publisher: Amazon/Kindle Unlimited
Length: 187 Pages
Category: Steampunk, Alt-Historical Fantasy
Rating: 4.5 Stars
At a Glance: The Tank elevates the Spell Saga series to a new level, through more robust attention to the magic and steampunk innovations of this historical setting. I anticipate more intrigues and sacrifices and threats to life and limb as war looms and the humans commit more inhumane atrocities in the name of power.
Reviewed By: Lisa
Blurb: All Anton Seiber, newly-minted Master Thaumaturge, wants is to use his training to support himself out in the world. Well, that and to see the man he loves, Imperial Investigator Camille Lumière, more than once every six months.
What he gets instead is an invitation to visit L’Institut D’Ingénierie Technologique in Paris, the foremost research institution for thaumaturgy and the arts of war in the world. It’s an offer he can’t turn down…quite literally.
Getting to the Institute is a mess that Anton barely survives, and that’s just the beginning of his troubles. Drawn into a web of lies and betrayals, Anton will have to use every trick he can conjure to survive—and perhaps hand over the most diabolical spell in the world in exchange for saving the life of someone he loves.
Review: Love in a time of political and social unrest means the stakes are higher, the sacrifices greater, and the consequences more costly. The question that arises at the end of this installment of Cari Z’s Spell Saga series is, what price will both Anton and Camille pay to protect each other, and for Anton specifically, to what lengths will he go to guarantee his best friend’s safety? The answers are, there is seemingly no price too high nor lengths too great. At some point, however, there will be a bridge too far, and based on the blurb for the next book, Camille will finally reach it in his service to the Empire.
As with the previous books, there is a murder to solve, again on a train, and again Anton’s life is endangered, to the point he must cross a line he’s never approached before. There are few clues but more than enough suspects to keep readers guessing. There are also secrets kept and secrets bared that cause some friction between these star-crossed lovers, but despite their long, enforced separations, their bond is still thriving. Tested but thriving.
The Tank elevates the series to a new level, through more robust attention to the magic, Camille’s unique condition and how it causes people to perceive him, the steampunk innovations of this historical setting, and the looming threat of insurrection by an organized group of radicals called the Dévoué. There is a race to create the most powerful weapons, to cause the direst of destruction, and Anton has indentured himself to Napoleon Bonaparte III—not as a loyalist but as a pragmatist. His friend Caroline’s life depended upon it. The world as they know it, in fact, may depend on it. And Anton has a weapon already in his possession, a weapon of his own design that could throw a different sort of warfare into the equation, through a harrowing manipulation of reality and perception. Something that, on the field of battle, could be crippling.
The Trials, the fourth, and I believe final(?), book in the series is on the near horizon. I anticipate more intrigues and sacrifices and threats to life and limb as war looms and the humans commit more inhumane atrocities in the name of power.
You can buy The Tank here:
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