On to the next book in Elemental Masters, Gates of Sleep. Big surprise here, it's a retelling of Sleeping Beauty. The female main character succumbs to a curse, falls into a coma-like state, and her love interest has to rescue her. It's almost exactly like the previous book! Granted, in this one the love-interest just gives Marina the opportunity to fight back and defeat her enemy, but it's still way too similar to the previous book. I feel cheated. If they were this similar in plot but from other worlds I could live with it, but this felt like a bad rehash.
What made the second book even more annoying is the professed love of the heroine and hero who had only spoken a handful of times. At least in Serpent's Shadow we get to see the relationship between the heroine and hero progress and actually believe they developed feelings for each other.
I'm saddened by this knock-off because I love the premise of this world. I'm going to read one more book in this series, and if it's another rehash of the sleeping beauty plot I'm going to wash my hands of the whole series, and probably of Lackey for a while.
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I did a little research since I wrote the above and discovered a few things. Apparently, Serpent's Shadow is a retelling of Snow White, and all of the Elemental Masters books are retellings of fairy tells. I am now a little less annoyed, but I still wish Lacky had done more to differentiate these books. I am also less hesitant about reading another book in this series.
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