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Review: The Symbiosis (The Drift #2) by Casie Aufenthie

March 27, 2023 by A.J. Calvin Leave a Comment

Blurb:

A hero lost. An assassin on the warpath. A villain forced to be a savior.

Eight months after Tristan Faraday sacrificed his identity to save the woman he loved, the newest member of the Council faces danger on all sides. The woman he was programmed to care for, Emmeline Boucher, grows more unstable and dependent on him daily while he becomes embroiled in a deadly political game with the ruthless Head of the Council, Fang Chen, who will do anything—destroy anyone—to hold on to her power.

To honor Tristan’s legacy, Samara Zidan has thrown herself into ending the Council’s reign, leading the Resistance in a furious offensive against them. However, her heart remains fixed on finding a way to save the man she loves. When an opportunity presents itself, Samara will end up in the path of the most dangerous people on the planet, risking both her heart and her life.

Desperate to uphold his promise to make amends, Wyatt Faraday has worked tirelessly to find a way to fix Tristan’s faulty memories, but with Fang out for his brother’s blood, time is running out. If he doesn’t restore what was taken from Tristan soon, everything Wyatt cares about will be lost.

Review:

While Samara and Tristan remain fixtures in the story, just as they were in The Drift, Wyatt (Tristan’s older brother—and one of the villains from book one) gets a larger share of page time. During this book, Wyatt became my favorite character—he’s not the villain I believed he was, and he developed into a fantastic champion for his brother. His character was very well done.

Anyway, I loved this book as a sequel, and I think I enjoyed it more than book one. There was more intrigue and intensity, and while there were still moments of raw emotional turmoil for one or more of the characters, I didn’t find myself sobbing through the final 20% of the book like I did with The Drift.

Don’t get me wrong: I really enjoyed The Drift, but that heart-wrenching ending wrecked me, so I put off reading the sequel for…a few months. Casie Aufenthie has a knack for portraying emotions in her stories, and is very good at making this reader cry.

But, this second installment in her series ends on a distinct note of hope. The ending was perfect, and I’m eager to read the third book once it’s available.

Filed Under: Dystopian, Reviews, SciFi Tagged With: Casie Aufenthie, Self Published, The Drift, The Symbiosis

About A.J. Calvin

I'm a fantasy author and an avid reader of all things sci-fi/fantasy/horror. When I'm not immersed in something literary, I like to hike, scuba dive, and play video games. You can follow me on Twitter at @AJCalvin, or you can learn more about my writing at ajcalvin.net.

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