Title: The Morning Flower (The Omte Origins #2)
Author: Amanda Hocking
Publisher: Wednesday Books
Publication date: August 4th, 2020
352 pages
4/5 stars
Goodreads Synopsis
Nestled along the bluffs of the forested coast lays the secret kingdom of the Omte—a realm filled with wonder… and as many secrets.
When Ulla Tulin took her internship at the Mimirin, the only mystery she thought she’d have to solve was that of her birth parents. After a girl named Eliana gets kidnapped while in her care, Ulla knows she has to find out the truth of who Eliana really is—and the only way to do that means traveling to the Omte capital, the place she suspects her mother is from.
Ulla didn’t expect that when she arrived she would discover the identity of a Skojare man who crossed paths with her mother—a man who could very well be her father. When the head of the Mimirin learns Ulla’s father is connected to the Älvolk, a secret society who believes they were tasked with protecting the First City and the only ones who know its location, he sends Ulla and Pan to Sweden where they find him living among the Älvolk. But all is not what it seems with the Älvolk and their urgent quest to find the Lost Bridge to the First City leaves Ulla feeling uneasy—and possibly in danger.
Review
In the thrilling sequel to The Lost City, Amanda Hocking continues Ulla’s journey to finding her parents. This book takes Ulla across the country and world, searching other Trollian cities and areas for clues. Every time she gets close to some information, another wrench is thrown into the mix and turns everything upside down. With her friends Pan and Dagny, Ulla also is searching for Eliana, the young girl she became close to in The Lost City. As the book continues, it seem more and more like the two searches aren’t as separate as they seemed…
I truly enjoyed reading this book more than I expected. Going into this series I definitely thought it would be more high/epic fantasy and it totally isn’t. It’s very modern with some cool references. The plot keeps going, though it seems like it was stretched a smidge to make it into a trilogy instead of a duology. This book was almost more interesting than the first because you experience more of the world with Ulla’s travels. I also LOVE Dagny. She has ace rep, which I love, and she’s so no nonsense that it really balances Ulla out. They are so different but work so well together as characters.
I wanted more romance. Give me more Ulla and Pan. Every time they got close, one of them pulled away and I just kept screaming at them to get together already!! So it’s definitely a more slow burn romance as we’re in book two and it hasn’t really happened yet. There was also a bit of middle book syndrome where most of it is just used to set up for the third book, so there isn’t much action. It’s a lot of data finding and questioning people in order to find everyone Ulla is looking for. But, it sets everything up nicely for The Ever After, the third book in the trilogy – I will definitely be reading this one to see how it all shakes out.
Also, this book is second in the third trilogy in this world. I have not read Amanda Hocking’s other books set in this world, but you don’t really need to. Everything is explained and easily grasped so don’t let that stop you from picking this series up.
Thank you to Wednesday Books and Netgalley for an advanced copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Happy reading, folks!
Baltimore Bibliophile 