Torn

Acknowledging that she was different from everyone else wasn't difficult for Wendy Everly - she'd always felt like an outsider.  But a new world and new family is a little hard for any girl to accept.  Leaving behind the mysterious country of her birth, she is determined to fit back into normal life.  But the world she's left behind won't let her go that easily...
Kidnapped and imprisoned by her true family's enemies, Wendy soon learns that the lines between good and evil aren't as defined as she thought.  And those things she'd taken for granted may have been lies all along.  With the help of the dangerously attractive Loki, she escapes back to the safety of Forening - only to be confronted by a new threat.
  It's time to make a choice - can she put aside her personal feelings for the sake of her country?  Torn between duty and love she must make a choice that could destroy her one chance at true happiness.


I read the first novel in the Trylle series, Switched, just under a year ago.  I wasn't completely won over with the whole instant love triangle, but I found Amanda Hocking's modern take on trolls and the 'cuckoo in the nest' story to be fascinating.  I think the same can be said for Torn.  There are no big action sequences or heart in mouth finales, but Hocking does, in my opinion, manage to avoid the second book slump by expanding the mythology of both the Trylle and the Vittra.

While informing the reader of events past, Hocking has created room for her characters to grow and be seen in a different light; none more than Wendy's mother Elora.  Throughout the course of the book Wendy's perception of Elora changes from that of a cold woman who barely cares for her daughter to someone who has been bound to her duties since childhood and understands that sometimes what is best for the self is not what is best for the people you rule over.

Torn is not without problems.  Unfortunately, I loathed the introduction of a completely new love triangle (argh!), even if it did help Wendy realise that you can't be in love on your own.  Another sticking point for me were Wendy's sometime idiot tendencies.  For example, her musings on what Matt and Willa are doing spending so much time together ended a few too many chapters to have been a plausible thought going through Wendy's head, as it was pretty obvious what they were up to!

I really enjoyed reading Torn. I read the whole book in one morning, which is a feat for my present case of scatter brain, and if you haven't read this series yet, and fancy something a bit fluffy and marginally different, then give the Trylle novels a try.  The final book in the series, Ascend, has a long waiting list, so it might be a while before I get my mitts on a copy but I'm happy to wait and hopefully my patience will be rewarded with a brilliant wrap up to the series. 
 
I also have to mention the short story at the end of my edition "One Day: Three Ways" as again, Hocking's condensed stories with different narrators steals the whole book, and really should have been part of the main novel.  So don't skip over it once you've finished reading Torn, trust me!