Blood Redemption by Vicki Keire
Curiosity Quills
Book Three in the Angel's Edge series
Paranormal Romance
Published November 11, 2013
Source: Received from publisher in exchange for an honest review.
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Why I picked up this book:
Had to know what happened in the end....
Blurb:
Trapped in the Dark Realms, Caspia finds herself the unwitting leader of a growing Nephilim rebellion. Plagued by strange dreams and intrigue, she learns to master her Azalene abilities when all she wants is to find her way back home.
To Whitfield. To Ethan.
When they meet in the Dreamtime, Caspia can tell something is wrong. Whitfield seems increasingly militarized. Ethan is agitated; Asheroth makes less sense than ever; and the Blackwood witches are teaching Logan deadly gifts. Most disturbing of all is Belial, who is as charismatic as he is cruel.
But Belial isn’t the only one threatening Whitfield. To avoid another Nephilim war, the Realms of Light decide to attack their ancient enemy first. Caspia, her hometown, and everyone she loves happens to be in the way. With the Light poised to strike from one side, and the Dark Realms on the other, she and Ethan must fight their way back to each other and try to protect the life they’ve built.
My thoughts:
I was so frustrated by this book! There's so much to love, and so much that frustrated me. I wanted pay-off after the build of the first two, but I didn't get it.
Pros
I still love the world that Keire has created. To start, the idea of having dark and light realms alongside the mortal one, kind of like heaven and hell but with the dark realms, at least, having independent rulers - this idea seemed cool to me. I would have liked to see similar in the light - mini-rulers of areas.
The characters. There's two opposing forces that are mostly angels vs fallen angels (and demons). The former have very black and white perspectives - this is good, that is evil, this must be protected, that destroyed. The latter teeter on the brink of madness once they've lost the mortal woman that they love. They're scheming and plotting and intriguing. There's a lot to dig into here, much more than we got to see in these three books.
I loved Jack. So much. I wish we'd gotten more with him. I loved that Keire was subtle with his interest in Caspia, that we weren't beaten over the head with a possible love triangle. His confidence was very attractive.
I loved Asheroth - his inconsistencies (as opposed to Caspia's) are endearing and appropriate with his madness. I could happily read more about his adventures.
Vampires, werewolves, hellhounds, demons, angels, grey ladies, witches, we've got a full spectrum of fantastical creatures, and I loved how they all fit into the world so effortlessly.
Cons
Repetition. This is a plot issue and a style issue. I felt as though plot-wise, the first two thirds of the book were a little repetitive. Even more annoying, the chapters read to me as though they were written in a serialized format - not so much with cliffhanger endings, but with recaps at the beginning of each chapter. Something would happen or be said at the end of a chapter, and then in the first couple pages of the next chapter, Caspia would 'remember' what had just happened or been said as though it was so long ago the reader might have forgotten. This happened repeatedly, and I found it a little irritating and unnecessary.
The huge war that the trilogy builds towards takes up less than a third of the final book. It was over far too quickly, far too easily. I didn't necessarily need more loss or more bloodshed, but I did need more action related to it. And the wrap up to it made sense but it happened so quickly that I felt unsatisfied by it.
Caspia. She wants to know more, but she doesn't to know more. She wants to protect her loved ones, she feels like she's got more power than them, that she can shield them, but then she runs around half-cocked, not having a clue what's going on, going on and on about needing a plan but never actually coming up with one. AND when she finally has a chance to get in on the plan - the battle plans for her side of the war - she walks out once she knows her role, rather than finding out even things as simple as who all is on her side. If Caspia had been written differently, I think I would have enjoyed this book a lot more. As it was, she was ineffective, childish, impulsive, whiny even.
Timing. Time moves different in the Dark Realms than on Earth. I wasn't sure how certain things that happened late in the book could possibly have had enough time to unfold in the Dark Realms when only a day or less had passed on Earth (days here being faster than days in the Dark Realms).
Finally, the story felt a little unfinished. Perhaps there's more to come, but at the point the story reaches at the end of this book, I thought there should really be more... conclusion. More wrapping up. More addressing some of the threads out there - Cassandra and Logan? The fate of Whitfield? Just a couple that come to mind.
Side note, I really love the paperback versions of these - something about the way that the books were printed? The quality of the covers is lovely - I could happily have a stack of these on my shelves.
Bottom line:
If you invested in the first two books, you'll want to read this one, but it wasn't, unfortunately, as satisfying as I hoped it would be.
I had some difficulty with the writing style in this last entry to the series and Caspia became even more annoying. Still, there were many things that I *did* really like, and now I'm hoping for a follow up trilogy with a different main character at the helm - perhaps Logan or a new character coming into Whitfield....
3 stars
For fans of the Angel's Edge series, angels and demons, cocky and tattooed men.
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