I have many thoughts on this book and the main one is thus:

sometimes book should stay as standalones.

And this book shows why. Grace is a good writer, and Belladonna was full of things I loved…but Foxglove? I have no idea what happened with this book. But it felt lacking, I didn’t get any of the same emotion or excitement as I did when I read Belladonna. I have three signed copies — three different editions — I loved it so much.

This one fell so unbelievably short. Signa and Death were nothing at all like they were in the first book, in fact, Death is barely in this one. We only see him a couple times, and he doesn’t take a major role in this book.

Blythe however, has her own POV chapters. And while Signa also has parts in this book, I felt that it was a bit discombobulated. I don’t know why, but the pacing in this book had me struggling. I felt that I wasn’t as invested in this book as I was the previous one.

I felt the tone too, in this book didn’t work for me. I didn’t really get a gothic feel, it felt odd. Like too many plot strings tangling together, and they don’t really work together. This was part murder mystery, part love triangle (that I felt was not done well..), part I don’t know what.

Unfortunately, it was boring. For a sequel to a book I absolutely loved last year, this was highly disappointing. Yes, there were some good moments in this book, but overall, I just didn’t click with it.

I am so sad because this was one of my most anticipated reads of the year and it absolutely fell flat.