Book Review: The Second Death of Locke

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Hello friends!!!

I’m back! I was gone last weekend for reasons of which there are none. I honestly just got caught up in the weekend and completely forgot about the blog post. This will probably happen from time to time, but I’ll try to be better about it.

No real news for you all this week, so let’s get into it!

  • Author: V.L. Bovalino
  • Genre: Fantasy, Romantasy
  • Spice: Yes, but it’s fairly mild
  • Trigger Warnings: None listed, but there is violence
  • Pages: 462
  • Published: 2025
  • Publisher: Orbit
  • Series: The Hand and the Heart, Book 1
  • Goodreads Rating: 3.89
  • StoryGraph Rating: 4.04

I picked up this book originally because I was testing out the Illumicrate YA book box subscription. I ended up reading the book because it fulfilled a prompt in my Buzzword Challenge from booksandlala. I was already interested in the book after reading the summary, and I had heard murmurs that this was a good book. It also helps that the edition from Illumicrate is just absolutely beautiful (although I also love the original cover). 

This book has a very interesting magic system where, in order for mages to perform magic, they must connect to another person who acts as a well for their power. There also seems to be a level of basic magic that these mages can do, but they primarily will manifest a particular magic. For instance, there are materialists who can create objects or those who can manipulate particular internal muscles. Any mage can connect to any Well; however, since the fall of the island of Locke, no more Wells have been born, and the world has been at war since.

The book follows Grey, who is a well for her mage Kier. She’s also the only remaining heir to the island of Locke and the only one who can resurrect the island and bring magic back, allowing for Wells to be born again (not a spoiler, I promise, it’s in the summary). We get to see the hardships she goes through as someone who must protect their mage and also provide them with power. We see a world that has been at war for 16 years, and how this has hurt the people. 

I really enjoyed the idea that magic requires two people. We get to see how Grey comes to terms with who she is and what it is she truly wants. We get to see this group that she builds and this support system as she tries to figure everything out. There were times when I felt like things were moving on a bit slower than I would like, but then it was like, all of a sudden, I was in the last 50 pages, and so much had happened. I really enjoy the interactions between Grey and Kier. Their relationship is a major focus of the book, and thankfully, they’re not completely annoying people to read about. 

As far as the “villain” kind of role. There is one, but it wasn’t impactful. While technically the villain could be considered a person, it’s more like a concept instead of a specific individual. You don’t have the BBE (big bad evil), but you do have politics that involve corruption, betrayal, and greed. I think that this works well for the world and the journey of our main characters. I think a BBE would take away from the story in the end.

When I picked this book up, I was in a bit of a reading slump. It took me longer than it normally would for me to get through the whole thing, and there were times when I didn’t really want to pick it up to read. In the end, I’m glad that I did. The book itself never gave me any reason to dislike it. The characters were interesting, and I was invested in their growth. I liked the unique magic system and the way the book was set up. All in all, this was a good book and I definitely would recommend it to someone looking for that knight and mage story.

4 ★


That’s it for this week! Like I said before, I’m sorry that I didn’t post last week. I know that I primarily post reviews of books or products, but that is the type of content I primarily enjoy making. If you would like to see anything else, please feel free to let me know. Also, did you read this book? If so, what did you think?

See you all next week!

Bye friends!!!

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