Illusionary: The unforgettable second installment of historical fantasy series, Hollow Crown

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They're united by lofty goals: find the fabled Knife of Memory, kill the ruthless King Fernando, and bring peace to the nation. Waiting for this book is a unique form of torture, but while we suffer, we can always reread the first book and scream as we feast our eyes upon this cover! Incendiary was one of my favourite fantasy novels of 2020, and Illusionary has definitely stolen the spotlight for 2021. In all honesty I’ve not been loving YA recently so it’s a huge compliment from me to say how much I thoroughly enjoyed it!

Whether this could have been fixed with multiple POV’s, or making the series a trilogy I’m not sure. Overall, while this conclusion wasn’t for me, I think that readers who really enjoyed the first one will probably be equally satisfied with this installment. A lot of my favourites from book one turn up, and we also get introduced to some new ones, but by far my favourites in this book were Leo, Renata’s only friend when she was in the Palace and Castian, the Prince she was once friends with.

J C and his onstage partner, 'Magic Babe' Ning, utilize this cutting edge base design in several of their illusions featured in their live shows and on TV across the world. Castian, who managed to steal my heart with very few scenes and just glimpses at his personality, had me fall in love with him already in the first book. They’re united by lofty goals: find the fabled Knife of Memory, kill the ruthless King Fernando, and bring peace to the nation. I probably should have quite while I was ahead, because while this wasn’t bad, it wasn’t amazing either.

I really enjoyed Incendiary, it wasn’t anything ground breaking necessarily but it was enjoyable and I got through it pretty quickly.I find it interesting to see which random reels go unexpectedly viral, you can just never guess which ones will get the most views. I really enjoyed this book and would have given 5 stars if not for one little thing (i'll mention later). Similarly, multiple members of the Whispers betray Ren and again it’s just glided over and moved past.