A Venom Dark and Sweet

It's definitely more of a 4.5 but I'm rounding up.

I've been eager to get to this sequel since the moment I finished reading A Magic Steeped in Poison, with that very fascinating and twisty ending. As my luck would have it, I read the first book weeks before it's release because I managed to get an arc but couldn't this time, so I had to wait for the release eagerly. I decided to try out the audiobook and I'm glad of my choice now.

I had already loved the first book but I have to say, this sequel is even better in almost every aspect. We finally move out of the palace and get to see the land outside of Jia, making for very gorgeous descriptions of mountains and forests and gorges and temples - the bamboo forest being one of the most memorable sceneries, and very easy to imagine coz it's a pretty common occurrence in cdramas. The stakes also change from one person's determination to save her family as well as palace intrigue, to something much more sweeping, with dark forces threatening the realm and ancient gods rendering support. Naturally, we get to know more about the creation of this world and the magic system, the mythology behind it all, and it made for a very fun read. The author's decision to make it a two POV book also helped us get a bigger picture of everything that was happening plot wise as well as giving us better character development than the first book. The pacing was pretty quick here because of the high stakes and it felt like everything was happening very fast - while I loved it for the most part, the ending did feel a tad bit too rushed, but satisfactory nonetheless.

Ning is a much changed person this time around. She has been through a lot of trauma, carries around the responsibility of her friends' deaths in her heart, and is determining to help Princess Zhen now that she has managed to save her sister. As she treks across the empire, learning more about her magic and the threat against their world, she becomes braver and wise and learns to trust her heart and it's decisions. She really comes into her own as the story goes on, and I loved her growing confidence in herself and those she trusts.

It was nice to finally get to know what Kang is thinking. I was initially a bit angry at him for following along with everything his father tells him, despite the cruelty of his actions - but I was glad to see that he still had a mind of his own and was interested in digging deeper and finding out uncomfortable truths. His connection to Ning is still present when they meet again and while I definitely expected more distrust and some groveling to occur before she trusted him again, it all happened pretty quickly here. But it was just nice to see them trust each other and work together for the well being of the people, even when it personally hurt Kang.

We do get to see a bit more of Zhen and Ruyi and I adore their relationship, but it really wasn't too much page time. It was awesome to see more of Ning and Shu's sisterly bond and really how far they'll go for each other's sake. I really wanted to see more of Lian and her bonding with Ning but she was almost absent from the book. The only other character who has some sort of significant presence through the narrative is the villain, who was very stereotypically evil like from many myths I've read, but it was fun to see our characters work together to defeat him.

On the whole, this was a fitting and satisfying conclusion to the Book of Tea duology. Full of beautiful descriptions, high stakes adventure, fascinating tea magic system, and a well developed mythology, this book is a thrilling ride and I fell in love more with the main characters. I can't wait to see what the author writes next.