Book Review: “Mystic” by Garrett Robinson

Warning: If you have not read “Mystic” by Garrett Robinson, do not read this book unless you don’t mind spoilers or already read it!

I’m back with another book review, and this time it’s “Mystic” by Garrett Robinson! Like with Nightblade, this is also part of me being part of Team Legacy, a group where you can read their books in advance for free and, in return, write an honest review for them! If you’ve come here from Amazon to read the full review, let it be known that I will be continually post only a section of the full book reviews for Team Legacy on Amazon, as that is the condition for posting reviews for their books. Full reviews will always be on this blog, and due to Amazon guidelines, I can’t post the URL to the full review on the Amazon reviews. Make sure to follow this blog to read the full review!

Here’s a summary so we know what it’s about:

“Loren is on her way to becoming the woman of her dreams: Nightblade, a warrior of the darkness and a champion of the light. But powerful enemies hunt her across the kingdom while she searches in vain for her lost friends.

At her side is Jordel, a Mystic who seems to know more about Loren than she would wish—and something about her powerful dagger. But Loren has much to learn about Jordel’s order, and not all of it is good.

Loren wishes only to find her friends and evade the King’s law. But she will have to decide whether to flee Underrealm’s problems, or stand and fight them—and on that decision may rest the fate of all who dwell in the nine lands.”

The plot was overall hard to understand in its second half, and I thought the first half was a bit slow. Once again there is the question of who to trust, and I feel like this will become an ongoing theme in the series. It’s hard to tell whether Jordel or Xain should be trusted, as well as the Mystics in general. This is because both Jordel and Xain have a lot of things to hide, and the actual Mystics such as Vivien are really shady and really hard to actually like.

I was surprised by the twist at the end of the book by establishing Xain as more of a rogue ‘Big Bad’ character, and I did like what backstory they gave to Xain regarding how his son is probably in danger, but I found it hard to sympathize or like him. As for ‘Big Bad’-esque characters in general like Vivien and Xain in this book, they were not as fun to read as compared to Auntie from the first book. While Auntie had a resourcefulness and pride to match it, neither Vivien or Xain feel as compelling enough to read, and it’s a bit of a letdown. Constable Bern also did not reappear in this book, which I find unfortunate because he was actually a character I liked from the first book. Hopefully we’ll see him and Loren run into each other in the next one.

Annis and Gem don’t get much character development as compared to the first book, which is kind of a shame since the first book did a decent job of establishing who they were. On top of that, though I praised Loren’s resourcefulness and quick thinking last book, Loren appears to either come off as too resourceful or way too stupid to understand what the heck is going on in this book. There is no balance—either it feels like she knows everything, or she knows nothing.

However, I did like the worldbuilding in the book regarding the magestones, as well as how the Mystics kind of function. We finally understand who these Mystics are, and as I mentioned earlier, they are kind of shady. They seem to be a bit on the morally grey side, and it will be interesting to see how the depiction of them goes in later books, especially ones like Vivien and Jordel.

Another thing I liked was Loren adapting to this role she’s always wanted to become, the legendary Nightblade, and she does grow a bit more ruthless and cunning throughout the book as she continues to adapt to this role.

Overall, I’m rating this book 3 out of 5 stars!

I’m hoping the next book will help redeem the plot a bit, as well as character development!

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