Review: Demon's Tear by R.E. Sanders

Blurb:

No prophecies
No destiny
The new heroes of our time shall choose themselves

The Jantakai, the lands of the Twin Swords, are divided. War threatens every border, crime infests countries like a disease, and the gods themselves have faded away. Beneath this turbulent arena an ancient, malicious power begins to wake. The whole world is like dry tinder, waiting for a spark.

Old friends Ellyah and Nastja must rediscover how to trust one another as they navigate the underworld of Anish. Eain is a young soldier of Banahgar, whose dreams of glory turn out to be a nightmare. Driven by necessity, their quests will force them to travel further and through more dangers than they could have imagined.

At the heart of it all, a blood-red ruby gleams, sending out a siren call. A frantic chase begins, those who would possess it unaware of the danger it holds. Glory and riches await the victor, and for the losers the only prize will be death.

Who will claim the Demon’s Tear?

Review:

On the first of May I sent Sanders a request to read the ARC for “Demon’s Tear”. The next day, the e-ARC was on my iPad, ready to read. The day after that, I set my iPad down and tried to explain the plot of this book to my nearest relative. Who stared at me with a confused look, because, as I realised as I was talking, the plot of this book isn’t really a plot. It’s more of coincidences over many subplots that create something akin to an overarching story, but there’s no cohesive connector (unless you add in two mythical artefacts). 

If I had to rope someone into this book, I’d give them these three sentences to hook them:

“A blademaster, three thieves, a cultist. Unconnected paths, no? At least, that’s what it sees like at first, but it all merges at the end.” 

But like most snippets, it only touches the surface of what's in the book, and doesn’t do the full story justice. Far from it. It has an ambitious idea, runs with it, and fully immerses the reader before leaving them wanting more by the end. It does this by throwing random snippets of almost unimportant characters into the mix, before jumping back into an action packed plot where you’re wondering how no one important died yet.

To understand what I mean by that, I best explain who will be guiding us through “Demon’s Tear”. Just the three most important PoVs: Ellyah, Eain and the unnamed cultist not in the blurb description. 

Ellyah? A thief who wants to pull off a heist that’ll pay for her entire future. Eain? A blademaster, or a young soldier, depending on which country you are in, lacking purpose and looking for something to live for. The unnamed cultist? Stockholm syndrome, I think that's what the cultist has. Either that or they have relationship issues. Whatever the cultist is suffering from, they want to complete their overlords objective without fail. Each of these characters have their own wants and methods of going about achieving that. 

The motivations? Ellyah wants to have enough money to settle down without having to deal with criminals any more. Eain wants to find a purpose after failing to do his job. And the unnamed cultist, they’re more of a mouthpiece for a demon trying to regain an artifact with immense power - in the right circumstance, not necessarily the nicest person. 

Their methods? Ellyah is a schemer who lurks in the dark, playing the long con. Eain is similar, yet not. He’s more open and outgoing, preferring the light to deal with those he’s against. And the unnamed cultist uses their power to influence their lackeys.

Do all of these characters work together? Not at all, in fact, none of them ever really see each other face to face, and even if so, only briefly. 

This brings me to the next point of why this book is good - the plot. Or better said, the lack of a coherent, singular plot line that makes sense by the end of the book. If done correctly, it’s an immense joy to watch things click into place. If not, the book is more often than not placed down in favor of a more understandable book. Some books toe that line from time to time, and “Demon’s Tear” is no exception. 

“Why does “Demon’s Tear” work so brilliantly when the plot itself is just several plots jumbled together?”, is what I asked myself while writing this review, and even now, my answer will be a bit incomplete, not because of me looking for reasons why, but because of the difficulty of pinpointing my feelings towards the plots inside. One plotline follows Ellyah and her A-Team of two others running across Jantakai to fence a jewel in a city unafraid of those chasing them. The other follows Eain as he fails a job he was supposed to undertake, which leaves him wandering around Jantakai looking for purpose. The unnamed cultist hid a jewel, which was then filched by a thief. Her plotline is more lateral, with the only thing going on in her chapters being the search of the tear using regular mortals and magical husks.

None of the three main plotlines interact with each other, well, just barely with each other. But the countless subplots that require a few strings of varying color and a picture board to comprehensively explain, they connect the main three through sheer coincidence and conflicting goals. And for me, because none of it felt forced and it felt natural with how all the right things fell in place, it worked.

Going away from the plot, the magic is also worth mentioning. Two magical artefacts are mentioned in the book, one is seen briefly, the other is practically the holy grail. 

This book is all about the Demon’s Tear, an object that seemingly kills all those unworthy to touch it. But that’s not it, there’s a catch. Whoever touches it and isn’t allowed to by the demon, is enthralled. I won’t elaborate on that, because the book itself goes far more into that detail.

Aside from that, the cultist follows a demon - their magic, the power given to them by the demon, is absolutely off the rails and would absolutely be enough to easily do everything they want to do, if there wasn’t a catch. Despite the magic coming from the demon, it draws on their own strength. Overall, the magic seen and used in this book was fun to see in action and I wouldn’t mind seeing more of the mostly unseen artefact in the next one.

Despite this book being an absolute blast to read, there are two things that made the book a bit difficult to get into. First of all, the way the main characters switch between almost completely unrelated, or even completely unrelated settings, felt jarring at first, since there was nothing connecting them in the first place, even location wise. Then, the side characters that kept up things from previous parts of the book, building up excitement for book two. At times, they meshed well with the story, giving a bit more insight, at other times it confused what was going on, with a story being pulled open to be continued in book two but having no connection to the rest of the plot aside from the fact that that’s where the main characters lived at or wandered through. 

Overall though, if you want a story with a lot of action, some confusion, some subterfuge and several wandering souls, and the magic being absolutely insane, I’d hand you “Demon’s Tear”. 

As always, thank you for reading to the end of this review, and I hope I’ve helped nudge you towards your next read. If this doesn’t sound like something for you, don’t fret, there’s other reviews for books of almost any genre. We’d be ecstatic if any of our reviews help you find your next read.

Wherever you are reading this, have a good morning, good afternoon, good evening and good night!