Review: Alchemy of Secrets by Stephanie Garber

**Contains some Spoilers**

This book started off so intensely and then lost steam. Holland is a graduate student. I can’t even remember if she is pursuing her Master’s or a PhD. I don’t think they even say what for. Only something to do with myths and urban legends. Her professor teaches a secret class about urban legends that may be true, and Holland is her best student. One night, she decides to go down a shady alley in search of one of the legends and brings along someone she is dating. The next day, she is called in to meet the new professor, Adam Bishop, who tells her that Professor is no longer her mentor and is a liar. Then the guy she was dating dies at the exact time the legend tells him, and she only has 24 hours to live. She can prolong her life if she finds the Alchemical Heart that no one has ever seen or knows what it looks like or knows where it is. Enters Gabe, a random guy who deactivates her car and says her twin sister sent him to protect her. They start to follow clues that lead them to a mysterious bank that is also part of a legend from her class. She finds out that her professor runs the bank and needs her to give her the heart once she finds it. Oh, and Gage may have killed his wife for powers. So she runs away from Gabe and runs into Adam, who also says that he was sent by her sister to protect her. And off they go following clues until the big reveal at the end. It’s roughly around the time that Holland starts searching with Adam that I felt the lack of urgency that was in the first half of the book. I can’t say why, I felt that way, but yeah. Things start to slow down for me. Not to spoil too much, but the resolution left some questions. It never really answered why Gabe was looking for the heart or what happened between him and his wife. Like, why bring it up and all? We never find out which one her sister sent to help her, if any, or what her sister’s role is in all of this. She is obviously part of this world, but it feels like she is pulling more of the strings than anything else. It wasn’t a bad book, but it just left me unsatisfied. It started out so good. I just wish it could have kept up the momentum.