A review by ataraxicbear
The Serpent's Curse by Lisa Maxwell

4.0

The Serpents Curse is the third installment in The Last Magician Series. We follow Esta and Harte as they work to find the missing artifacts, all while struggling against the fight of two gods. The book as a whole was great. We got to spend time with old friends and make new ones. However, it was a little long and left me unsatisfied. I originally assumed it was a trilogy, but now I’m guessing not. Overall, I give it 3.5 stars - rounded up to a 4/4.

Here’s what I loved:
- the development of Esta and Harte’s relationship. Man, it must be tragic to not be able to hold hands with the one you want to
- Maggie and Jericho! I’m obsessed with them. I love seeing how their future turned out in this book. Just like those two, I’m almost scared to know how it would change if time is reset
- the discussions on race and diversity. Major shout out to Lisa Maxwell for really taking the time to include this in her book and make the characters question the things they thought were about other characters of color and origin
- I loved getting to go back into Harte’s story. It’s about time we got to learn more about him!
- we got to travel all across the USA and experience what’s happening in different states, especially how they treat Mageus

What I didn’t love so much:
- I’m usually a fan of multiple timelines and points of view, but I found Jack Grew’s timelines specifically to be really confusing to read about. Which is upsetting since he’s the main villain
- I really wanted more information about 1903. We spent a lot of time in 1902 and 1904, and I feel like I was always missing a little bit of context
- Jack’s morphine addiction. Like is there a point? Or did he use it to quiet Thoth like Harte? This always seemed pointless to me
- the ending was SO unsatisfying. I was getting so close to the end thinking how on earth is this going to wrap up in 20 pages... it didn’t lol

Overall, I am really loving this series, and this was another great installment in the series. I highly recommend anyone to check out the first book, The Last Magician, and continue reading. It was in fact worth the wait between books.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon and Schuster Canada for providing me with an advanced ecopy of this book in exchange for an honest review.