GoodReads:

After falling victim to the Questing Beast, Socorro awakes in the unfortunate company of the sorceress Morgan le Fay and Murphy, the heir of Sir Mordred.

As the bond that ties Socorro to her ancestor Sir Galahad continues to strengthen, she is ever more determined to find the grail and her way back home.

The war between Merlin and Morgan le Fay looms closer, the path ahead is littered with obstacles, and the rules change with every step that she takes. Will Socorro give in to her so-called destiny? Who can she trust when everyone has motivation to pull her strings? And as the presence of Sir Galahad guides her toward the hidden grail, will the King of the Underworld find her worthy enough to simply hand it over?

Book Information
Title: The Black Spire
By: Amanda Lynn Almaraz
Publisher: Amanda Lynn Almaraz
Format: Paperback, Kindle, B&N eBook

My Review

This is the SECOND book in the Descended series, you can find book ONE’S review, HERE.

Sox was bitten by the Questing beast at the end of book one, we saw her thrown into another new and magical situation for our MC and Almaraz did not fail to deliver with this.

Leaving behind what was just becoming familiar, Socorro is on her own, she’s found herself with almost no memory of recent events and time has all melded together. What’s more, she’s not actually alone, there’s someone helping her, someone named Murphy.

Murphy helps Sox on what appears to be a road trip, one where Sox doesn’t remember going on and has no idea of the destination. Not to mention, she keeps seeing people in reflections. And…did he call her Galahad?

Almaraz writes in a style that reflects the confusion of Socorro back onto the reader, you experience the same sort of disjointed feeling, where something is missing and the confusion is at times overwhelming for Socorro and you feel it directly.

Once the mystery of Murphy and the road trip are solved, it’s back to business, Socorro may not have all her memories, but she does know when something is off or needs to be done so it’s off on another adventure.

We see Morgan’s castle, we travel from it to find the location of the Holy Grail, and that leads us to possibly one of my favorite written locations ever.

The Black Spire

The journey Socorro takes to get to the Black Spire though, woof, that is rough. I wish that trip on no one! But I’ll not say more because, well, spoilers.

In the Black Spire is where it’s not only confusing and almost trippy journey for Sox but for those she may reunite with! [Again, not gonna give spoilers!] The pieces of the past are showing their importance more than ever and all the while we are still experiencing this almost traumatic pull of memories that Sox and others are experiencing, through Sox.

The memories were highly emotional for me, knowing the origins of a lot of them and holy cow the feels I had through this were as much of a roller coaster as what Socorro felt.

Socorro is now in doubt of things she’s learned before where Galahad is concerned and as we only know what she knows, there’s no way we get to know the answer before her haha, so, we’re left in the dark for now as well!

There’s more of the lore of Arthur and his knights and Almaraz’s take on that and I really enjoyed that.

While, again, this is a more traumatic experience for Socorro, it’s also leading somewhere. The end of this book proves that the past is worth knowing as they find an unlikely alley in the Black Spire and prepare themselves for the coming battle.

Question is, what is Morgan Le Fay up to, what’s up her sleeve and what will Socorro do next?

5/5 Cups of coffee from me, a quick and eventful sequel meant to jarr you in its writing style and make you feel what Socorro feels.