The second book in The Order of the Strawberry Circle and things get cold and scary!

I am so glad I could read this one pretty soon after that first one, now I need to wait until next year, and I am not sure if I will remember. Thankfully, I got these reviews~

In this book it is time for Christmas in Fels and our MC is looking forward to doing all the events. But well, we know what happened in the previous book and so there is something wrong/off going on from the start. It is very cold. But then the vandalism starts. Which our MC and of course the order know will probably be supernatural stuff, but sadly the town thinks otherwise and so we get a more realistic bit in the book, namely racism/judging people on where they live/who they are. And sadly, that person is Rani’s brother. Yup. Our MC’s best friend’s brother is in trouble and we see that this affects her hard. I just wanted to jump in at times and give Rani a big hug.

Things get really spooky and for a lot of the book I was on the edge of my seat. However, there were sadly too many instances that pissed me off. I could understand that the dad was angry/worried when things happened with Jo, but to take away the chance to see her mom at the airport, to welcome her home? That was just horrible and terrible. Ground her if you want. But this girl hasn’t seen her mom in MONTHS, you cannot take that away from her. That moment. There were also other moments that had me shaking my head. I just wanted ONE person to care for Jo and listen to her or actually see her. Even the order were pieces of poop in this one. I get that they wanted to keep Jo save, but she has proven that she can do things. Holding her away from things, hiding things, while on the other hand having two other kids having free reign is just not cool. I was not happy. And yeah, I knew what would happen. I mean, if everyone acted like this to me? I would have gone out of my way to do things myself as well. I would have found a way.
Plus, I was SO unhappy with the Rani situation at the end. Jo already felt like shit the whole time and then this happens and it was all made to be Jo’s fault. While Jo didn’t have any fault. At least in my eyes. She didn’t know something was watching and saying that would mean that. Plus, she had to make a decision instantly and this way there is a chance to still do something. Otherwise it would all have been lost.

Now that I have said most I wanted about how badly I didn’t like things, let’s go to the good stuff. I love the German folklore, loved the things our MC and her family did during the days before and during Christmas (though I didn’t know that there were still families adding REAL CANDLES to their trees), the spooky stuff was fantastic there were so many moments that had me terrified as there were just some things lurking in the shadows that made me go nope nopenope, there were so many layers to everything, I loved the order even if they were asses at times, I loved the archives and wish by all I could wish that I could also check them out, and there are some backstories! Oh, and I love the cover!

All in all, I am still very happy I read this one and I flew through it. Now I am just sad I have to wait this long for the next book, arggh!