Where Dreams Descend by Janella Angeles
St. Martin’s Press, 2020, 373 pages
Trigger Warnings: Sexism, violence, moderately strong language, emotional abuse
About the Author: Janella Angeles is a Filipino-American author who got her start in writing through consuming glorious amounts of fanfiction at a young age—which eventually led to penning a few of her own, and later on, creating original stories from her imagination. A lifelong lover of books, she’s lucky enough to be working in the business of publishing them on top of writing them. She currently resides in Massachusetts, where she’s most likely to be found listening to musicals on repeat and daydreaming too much for her own good. (Bio taken from the author’s website.)
Website: https://janellaangeles.com
Twitter: @janella_angeles
Instagram: @janella.angeles
Hashtag: #WhereDreamsDescend
For as long as she can remember, Kallia has longed for more: to learn more, do more, be more. As the star of Hellfire House’s nightly performances, Kallia’s dances are mesmerizing and filled with powerful magic. She dreams of escaping to Glorian, the mysterious ruined city beyond the woods. When she learns of a competition between magicians taking place in Glorian, Kallia is determined to compete, never mind the fact that no female magician has ever competed against men in such capacity before. But a dark force is gathering in Glorian, and magicians are quickly disappearing. As darkness and danger threaten, Kallia must choose her friends carefully and depend on her magic if she wants to escape the perilous competition alive.
Full of magic and intrigue, this book kept me reading until the early hours of the morning. While it takes a good chunk of the first half before the story really gets started, the action, mystery, and romance of the second half mostly make up for it. The characters are well-developed with realistic flaws, dreams, and struggles, and Kallia’s fight for equality is timely and well-written. Dark and magical, Janella Angeles has crafted a fantasy world with questions around every corner. However, despite some of the excellent features of the book, the plot does create more questions than answers, which makes it difficult to be completely satisfied by the end. I’m looking forward to a sequel to dive into this world once again and hopefully have some of my questions answered. Fans of darker magic and fantasy will enjoy this thrilling novel.
Where Dreams Descend releases on August 25, 2020.
(Pine Reads Review would like to thank NetGalley and the publisher for providing us with an ARC in exchange for an honest review. Any quotes are taken from an advanced copy and may be subject to change upon final publication.)
PRR Writer, Wendy Waltrip