Series: The Edge #4
Author: Ilona Andrews
Review: Richard Mar is on a quest to eliminate the slave trade. He is gravely injured when he is saved by Charlotte in the Edge. Charlotte is a noble healer (a few rare talent) who left the Weird a few years prior after a difficult divorce. They team up to stop the slavers and fall in love.
I was really looking forward to this book and expected to love it. I liked it well enough but here are some thoughts.
The Good: Most of the secondary characters were great. A new character Jason was introduced and George and Jack were fantastic. I know this series is considered over, but if Andrew's wanted to continue it, the door is open. I also thought the overall arc involving the slave trade was pretty interesting.
The Okay: Richard and Charlotte. I didn't love them and I didn't hate them. They were just both a little boring. I was surprised by this because Charlotte has one of the coolest talents out of every character-she has the ability to heal and destroy in mass quantities. She can literally cause plagues! Both characters were reserved and stoic and their romance (which mostly consisted of internal dialogue) just seemed to happen. There was very little strife getting together.
The Inconsistencies: We have been told that people with strong magic cannot go into the Broken. Rose and Declan, who both flash white in the Edge, can cross over. Richard can only flash blue in the Edge (blue is weaker than white) but his magic is too strong to cross over. Hmm..if Rose and Declan can cross over, Richard should be able to as well. We are also reminded how the Broken has technology but no magic, while the Weird is more like the middle ages with no modern technology but magic is strong (that is how I envisioned it in the previous books). It seemed like things were pretty modern in the Weird in this book. Also, now that we know healers exist, why didn't a healer 'fix' Spider after his spinal injury?
The Odd: Charlotte is divorced, disappears for three years and shows up again without too much trouble. I know she was introduced by a woman of high standing but it seems like people should have been gossiping a little. There was also a lot of time spent on the proper fashion in the Weird and how Charlotte knew exactly what colors and styles were popular. She was gone for three years and didn't appear to keep in touch with anyone, she should have had to catch up herself on the current styles. Another oddity: Sophie. The extent of my opinion on her is: odd. She's emotionally traumatized from her time with the slavers and I wanted to sympathize with her, she just seemed so cold and distant. If Andrew's decides to expand this series with George and Jack, I would expect to see a more mature Sophie dealing with her demons. Now that could be a great book.
The Downright Disappointing: **Spoiler, stop reading if you don't want to know the end of the book.** Spider has been a formidable opponent to our favorite Edgers throughout the series. He's intelligent, has a strong, scary team and is a great fighter. He was not given the final showdown he deserved. In fact it seemed like an afterthought to wrap up his storyline. First of all, the only person that recognizes him is Sophie (really?!) and she kills him very easily (really?!). I just wanted and expected something a little more dramatic and exciting.
Overall, I like this book but it was my least favorite of the series.
Grade: 3/5
No comments:
Post a Comment