Review: North Star Guide Me Home

North Star Guide Me Home by Jo Spurrier
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Wow I finally finished the series!

... I think.

I mean, with that ending ... are we getting a spin-off? Coz I could totally go a spin-off.

This series is really tricky to rate. I loved it, and enjoyed every moment of reading it, but I don't really know what happened?

WARNING: The following review contains spoilers for the previous two books in the series.

Here's what I liked:
- The characters
-The magic
-The way it cut out all the boring trekking etc
-Unpredictable

Here's what I didn't like:
-Hard to keep track of what's happening
-Delphine

I mean, this was definitely all about the characters for me. I fell instantly in love with Sierra and Isidro in the first book, but Rasten captured my heart in book 2 and he was definitely my fave here. He has such an interesting story and I loved that he was so physically powerful yet so mentally broken. Isidro starts this book clinging to life precariously, so my heart was aching for him as well, and he also has really interesting development. The relationship between him and Sierra is all messed up, and she's vouching for Rasten which adds a lot of tension to this novel. For me, the best part of this book - and the entire series - was seeing what these characters go through, how they deal with it, and how they find the strength to keep pressing on. Delphine is someone I could have done without, though. I mean, she played her part in book 2 but is it really necessary to try to integrate her? She felt like such an outsider in this book, and while that makes me feel for her, it also meant I felt awkward every time she was involved in the action.

The actual journey back to the homeland was a bit confusing - I never really understood what their goal was, how they'd ended up where they were, and what the point was to anything they were doing. That could be because I forgot so much of what had happened in the previous books, but I think it's also because the story works hard to cut out all of the long arduous treks, and political conflicts, that it ends up missing important information. I suppose the world-building was a little weaker than I'd have liked, but to be honest I didn't really care about why they were doing what they were doing, as long as the characters were doing interesting things.

I do feel that the atmosphere was utilised quite well, though - the first book is all cold, harsh winter, whereas with this last installment you do get the sense that the land is beginning to thaw, and the snow beginning to melt. Although apparently that's not the case at all back in their homeland.

The magic system was totally badass, though. I love how prominent the violence was. Like, sure, these are some hardcore mages we're dealing with, but they pay a steep cost. It's pain, blood, and sacrifice, and it just added this element of rawness that made it so much more interesting to me. It was also interesting how they all kinda had their own signature to their magic. Very cool.

Finally, here's some spoiler thoughts:
(view spoiler)[
-I'd forgotten that the clans are all for polygamy, so I was trying to work out how Issey would go about choosing Sierra over Delphine, when Delphi was carrying his child. But they can all just marry each other! What an easy solution to messy love-triangles!
-I really liked the relationship between Rasten and Cam - Cam is such a typical golden boy, who is all about honour and protecting the people, so of course he has this black and white view that Rasten is bad and so must die. But as he gets to know him, he's able to learn that maybe Rasten is not so bad, after all.
-Speaking of Rasten and relationships, his love for dogs completely stole my heart. It made me so happy. I love that Issey's strategy to keep Rasten from killing himself is to give him puppies. So beautiful.
-Issey is actually really thoughtful and considerate, considering the hell he's been through.
- ... but on that note, wasn't it mysterious the way he 'woke up' with extra power? Did we ever get an explanation for who was behind it?
-I wanna know who's baby Sierra is carrying! I mean, that girl got a lot of action. Personally, I'm hoping it's Rasten's, and their kid is the reason for a spin-off series. I'd 100% read it. (hide spoiler)]

To conclude, I love these characters, and they were way more interesting to me than the story. The series is probably not particularly epic, or deep, or even logical, but I just had such a fun time with these characters. So if you are like me and enjoy the process of falling in love with characters (especially bad boys) then I'd highly recommend you give this series a try.

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