The Cathedral of Lost Souls is the second book in Paula Brackston’s Hecate Cavendish series, and picks up shortly after the heartbreaking end of the first book, with the funeral for Hecate’s fiancé, John.
I would not recommend reading this book before reading the first in the series since the story is a true sequel to that book.
The story starts out rather slowly, as Hecate picks up the pieces of her life, and returns to the Cathedral to work in the library, and to recommence her task of learning about the threat of the Essedenes and how to defeat them. Even with the slow pacing in the beginning, the tension kept building to the point that there were times when I almost didn’t want to continue due to the amount of dread I was feeling. At around the halfway point, the story really picked up and before I knew it the story was at an end.
There were a few things in the novel that I felt were unnecessary to the story, the main ones being the return of John’s ghost, and the introduction of a new love interest. The new love interest felt like it was too soon after the events in the previous book, and he didn’t seem to serve any real purpose in the story. Similarly John’s ghost really seemed to have no point, other than to make Hecate feel conflicted about her feelings.
I am a bit confused about whether or not this book concludes the series since the story felt complete at the end.
The Cathedral of Lost Souls is filled with adventure, magic, danger, and a few emotional moments that brought tears to my eyes. Despite the slow start, The Cathedral of Lost Souls was a great read and I would recommend it to lovers of fantasy or historical fiction with magical elements.
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
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