Book Review: Nicodemus by D.B. Reynolds

 

Book Description

It was a time when gods walked the earth, when armies fought not for bits of land, but for the very existence of humanity. On such a battlefield, five formidable warriors stood against an evil greater than any the earth had ever seen. But evil is not an honorable foe. Betrayed by someone they trusted, the warriors were cursed, one by one, tossed into the maelstrom of time, imprisoned in stone, their freedom resting on nearly impossible conditions. Alone of the five, their leader, the sorcerer Nicodemus, was left free. His curse? To know that his fellow warriors remained trapped forever out of his reach, condemned to an eternity of searching for their stone prisons and the keys to their freedom.

Nicodemus stood on the battlefield, magic a storm of power surrounding him, his army on the cusp of victory against his lifelong enemy, the sorcerer Sotiris, whose death would finally bring peace to their world . . . until everything changed. The four warriors who’d stood by him through endless wars were struck down by a curse, gone in an instant, and spun into the sands of time. And Antonia, the woman he loved so fiercely, was bespelled into an unknown world, captured by the sorcerer she’d betrayed.

Following Sotiris’s vanishing trail, Nicodemus searches through worlds and centuries until finally, in a universe a thousand years from where he was born, his freed warriors seek him out and stand with him once more. But what of Antonia, what of her fate at the sorcerer’s whim? And if she still lives, how will he find her? With his warriors’ help, Nicodemus untangles the twisted reality Sotiris has contrived to hide his beloved. Together at last, Nico and Antonia will rediscover the love and trust they once held for each other, wanting only to share the life they’ve been denied for so long.

But Sotiris is still a threat--one that must be eliminated if there is to be peace. With Antonia and his warriors by his side--as well as an unexpected, but deadly, ally--Nicodemus prepares for the final battle. And this time, only one sorcerer will walk away.

My Review

This book starts out showing Nico's life before his friends were encased in stone and how the battle between he and Sotiris happened and how Sotiris won against him. We get to see how and why he and Antonia got to know one another and what happened to her. While I've been reading this series out of order, it really didn't take away from this book but this book did start out really slow for me. 

Nico searched for many, many years before he finally found out where Sotiris had sent his friends and Antonia and he made sure that they would be able to find him once they escaped their prisons. We get to watch his life as he makes friends, battles vampires and even make friends with one and starts to accumulate wealth that will hep him later on. He still has some of his magic even though he traveled to another world where he followed Sotiris so he could find his friends. But Sotiris knows he's looking for him and leaves him little notes about the curses that surround his friends and how he doesn't think they will ever escape. 

It isn't until I'd read almost 65% of this book that we get to present day where all of his friends have escaped their cursed prisons and he finally finds Antonia. All the back story just bored me to death, it was really slow going to even get to a part of this book that kept my attention for more than a couple of minutes. It's actually not until the end of this book that it finally starts to get interesting because Nico is allies with Raphael and Cyn from this author's Vampires in America series and Raphael helps bring down Sotiris in a fight that was a little anti-climatic to say the least. With Sotiris being this mega-powerful and smart sorcerer that has kept Nico on his toes and searching for his friends and lost love for a millennia, I thought the battle would be...more. But it seemed to end a little to fast for me and wasn't the huge, exciting thing that I was expecting. I've somewhat liked some of the other books in this series but this one just didn't do it for me at all. 

I give this book 1 out of 5 stars. 

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Disclaimer" I was given an e-ARC of this book via NetGalley but all thoughts and opinions are my own.