Ascend

Wendy Everly can barely remember what it was like to feel like a normal girl.  She'd wished for her life to be different but everything is so much more complicated than she'd expected.  And she certainly hadn't dreamt she'd be getting married at eighteen to a man she didn't love - all for the sake of duty.

As the big day approaches, Wendy can't stop thinking about two different men - and neither of them are her husband-to-be.  Finn, quiet, strong and determined to do what's right, and Loki, dark and seductive - a sworn enemy who once saved her life...

With all out war just days away, Wendy needs to act quickly if she is to save her friends and family.  But while her loyalties and duties are to her people, deeper passions are leading her elsewhere.

And as her worlds collide Wendy must sacrifice everything she loves to save them.  But will it be enough?

WARNING: This review *might* be a bit spoilery.

Ascend is pretty much a good conclusion for Amanda Hocking's Trylle series.  It is all about growing up and how to make the right decision.   Most of the supporting characters get pushed aside in this book (with the exception of Willa, who is allowed some growth, too.) and it really is a chance to show how much Wendy has changed over the course of the series.  She is unrecognisable from the somewhat selfish person she was in book one.   Now an adult and making mature decisions not only about her kingdom but her love life, too.  There's still the annoying love triangle: Wendy's relationship with Loki grows over the course of the book, and her relationship with Finn deteriorates into something new.   I'm extremely glad Hocking didn't back track on the ideas she had put in place in Torn, as I think this would have ruined the entire series for me.

These books have never been about action, but about world building and character interaction.  Therefore, the climactic fight between the Vittra and the Trylle may have been short and sweet, but I did laugh at the Buffy-esque moment when Wendy finally gets the upper hand over her father. 

Right up until the last few chapters, I was content with how the series was wrapping up.  Then I started to notice the direction Hocking was corralling her characters in and I thought....oh balls.  The last moments I spent with Wendy and co. read like the epilogue in Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows.  I get the need for a happily ever after, but this was way too happy, way too neat and tidy.  Then there was the short story included in my edition.  Normally I sing the praises of these extra stories, but this time around Hocking further hammered home how twee and perfect everything was for the Trylle.  I'm not cruel...it's not like I wanted everything to turn out like one of Elora's last paintings, but maybe the ending could have been a touch more subtle?

Another problem I had was the contradiction of Wendy not wanting a one-night-stand with Finn, because it would only be for one night.  Flash forward to her saying a 100 pages later that she was okay reversing the situation when having a chance to sleep with Loki.  Was this a case of double standards or was this intentional because things would eventually work themselves out?

Overall,  I'm not sad that this was the last book.  I think there's room for more stories (perhaps from a different narrator?), but everyone is in their perfect happy bubble, so maybe they should be left that way.

The Holders

17-year-old Becca has spent her whole life protecting her brother - from their father leaving and from the people who say the voices in his head are unnatural. When two strangers appear with apparent answers to Ryland's "problem" and details about a school in Ireland where Ryland will not only fit in, but prosper, Becca is up in arms.

She reluctantly agrees to join Ryland on his journey and what they find at St. Brigid's is a world beyond their imagination. Little by little they piece together information about their family's heritage and the legend of the Holder race that decrees Ryland is the one they've been waiting for... but, they are all, especially Becca, in for a surprise that will change what they thought they knew about themselves and their kind.

I shouldn't like The Holders as it contains three of my pet hates: A whiny narrator, love at first sight and plenty of telling and hardly any showing. And yet...I couldn't stop reading Julianna Scott's debut novel.

Scott had me hooked as soon as Becca and Ryland were leaving America behind, and heading to a boarding school in Ireland.  Those first few chapters contained so much potential for where the story could eventually lead and I was excited to follow Becca on her journey.

What kept me reading, even when I had my doubts, was the logic that was behind the tropes that I normally hate.  Becca is whiny teen because she doesn't get to whine to other people.  She has had to be an adult in order to protect Ryland.  The whole love  at first sight thing is explained in a way that relates to the mythology of the Holders.  Also, for Becca it isn't necessarily insta-love.  Finally, there is so much information that Scott needs to relay to the reader that maybe there will be more showing in the second book now that the world has been established.  Maybe I'm making excuses because I found this book charming despite it having flaws that I normally abhor.  Or maybe The Holders was genuinely a good read.
 
An interesting, and somewhat fun, introduction to what could be a fantastic series.

The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger

In The Gunslinger, Stephen King introduces readers to one of his most enigmatic heroes, Roland of Gilead, the Last Gunslinger.  He is a haunting figure, a loner, on a spellbinding journey into good and evil, in a desolate world which frighteningly echoes our own.
  In hi first step towards the powerful and mysterious Dark Tower, Roland encounters an alluring woman named Alice, begins a friendship with Jake, a kid from New York, and faces an agonising choice between damnation and salvation as he pursues the Man in Black.


I had heard great things about The Dark Tower series, and I have liked previous books from Stephen King (even if I didn't realise it until 20 chapters in) so I thought, why not?  I had been meaning to order the first book of the series, The Gunslinger, for a while and about four Saturdays back it just happened to be waiting for me on the Science Fiction shelf in the library.

  Now, I don't know if this was because I'd been having a funny week and couldn't concentrate but I could not latch on to this book mentally.  I enjoyed the introduction and foreword by King, I think he has such a clear voice when he is talking about his work, but then when I got to the actual story I had no clue what was going on.  This usually happens with me and new books, so I was expecting to start retaining some information about a third of the way in but this never happened.  I finished the last few pages last night and I don't think I could tell you what happened apart from that Roland had a conversation with the Man in Black.

I'm not giving up on my attempt to read this series, but, I'm not in a rush to order or read the next instalment.  However, if like this one, it magically appears on the library shelf in the new year, then I'm most probably going to check it out and see if it was a first book fluke or if I really do have a problem with rambling fantasies.

Costume Not Included

As I've mentioned in a previous review, I was disappointed with the first book in Matthew Hughes' To Hell and Back series.  I had ordered the sequel, Costume Not Included, at the same time from the library and I wasn't over enthused to begin reading.  So after a break of a few weeks I decided with trepidation to go on another adventure with Chesney ' Actionary' Arnstruther and and his demon sidekick Xaphan.

Chesney Arnstruther's efforts to Save the Day and Get the Girl are making slow progress.  This superhero stuff is more complicated than he first thought, even with a cigar-chomping demon for a sidekick.
But while Chesney is trying to learn the ropes, Boss Greeley has made a deal with the Devil, a pact that is making the villain stronger by the minute.  Meanwhile, the Reverend Hardacre has been doing some research into matters spiritual and has found that not everything in the Garden (of Eden) is rosy.

For me, Costume Not Included was a marked improvement, and I wish that this was the first book in the series.  I found it easy to read and finished within a day.  Hughes grapples with the same concepts of good and evil and everything in between as before, but has moved the story in a different direction; focusing more on his characters relationships with each other and the Reverend Billy Lee Hardacre's intentions for writing The Book of Chesney.  While slightly plot light, the cast of characters are all written well, and there has been plenty of development between the two books, with Chesney dealing with his new relationship and introducing Melda to his his somewhat hypocritical uptight mother.  Then there's Xaphan, who, as always, was fantastic as the chain cigar smoking, constant rum drinking fiend.
  I look forward to more Hell and Back Adventures, and hope that Hughes can find an even better way to utilise his characters through a stronger plot.