Kathy Kuwano

Not great, not terrible

Reviewed: 02-05-25

Pros:
I was really glad things ended the way they did. The conclusion made sense and in the middle/end of the book, there was a good twist. Fine for the last book in a five book series.

Cons:
I felt like the book could have been SIGNIFICANTLY shortened. First off, I read this book a few years after the release of the previous book so I don’t remember any characters aside from the main love triangle. The book starts out with a super long prolog about characters I don’t remember (and at that point I just want to hear what happens to our main girl). In the middle/towards the end the author does a really good job wrapping up the love stories of all the characters (quite the feat) but I really didn’t like it. It felt like the same love story over and over again. Within the last 30 minutes I thought I had escaped discussion about the purple moon BUT NO (if I had a donut for every time that moon was brought up I’d be full and would likely have diabetes). Instead of focusing on all the other characters m, I would have preferred a fully flushed out conflict between Elloren and Yvan. I still haven’t fully recovered from elloren thinking Yvan was dead and then, Willy nilly, getting together with Lucas. How can Yvan forgive her so easily? The author only spent roughly 5-10 minutes explaining and fully flushing out this love triangle. I’m so dissatisfied. 3 hours left in the book and I didn’t care to finish. I did finish it and completely didn’t think it was necessary. Aside from our main/sub characters from the first book, I didn’t connect with many of the other characters and thought it was a total waste of time.
I also really disliked another aspect of the overall plot line. SPOILER WARNING: why does everyone have to become a Druid in order to fight together and protect the natural world? I understand that it can be a metaphor for “joining” together with everyone, but, as a POC, I didn’t appreciate this take. Throughout this series, we see parallels between racism, sexism, and hate between Earthia (?) and the real world. Yet we need to change our DNA in order to “join” with everyone and fight evil? I wish to e author spent more time trying to reconcile and develop a more believable solution…. Instead of focusing on everyone’s (very repetitive) love life.
Just a personal preference, SPOILER WARNING, but I also didn’t like the action. I oftentimes felt like the “good” side was being obliterated, despite the build up that elloren is the all powerful, black witch. I would have appreciated better fighting scenes. I know the theme of the book was for love to override evil, but it just didn’t feel consistent with the first book and left me feeling alittle lackluster. I saw a wuxia drama that conveyed this theme while also remaining consistent with the violence within the series. It was very satisfying and made me bawl my eyes out.

Overall, I’m really disappointed with this last book, yet happy with how everything ended. Please feel free to read if you’d like to know what happens, but don’t raise your expectations (you can easily read the sparks notes and get the same info). Also feel free to speed through a lot of the love scenes… or just skip them.

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Starting to fall off for me

Reviewed: 09-06-24

This book was generally a good continuation from the first two books, but I think I liked the first two books so much more.

It seems like Diem has frustrated many readers in the first two books, of which I didn’t really mind/it didn’t frustrate me. Small-ish spoiler, Diem makes way too many stupid (and somewhat selfish) decisions throughout this book. It nearly made me want to stop reading. The only reason I want to finish the series is because it’s just one more book, the overall plot is still really interesting and original, and the mistakes weren’t enough to completely and catastrophically mess everything up.

The only other, maybe small/unpopular, detail I have is that I have come to dislike Luther’s overall character design. I guess I didn’t notice it earlier but I don’t feel like Luther is very realistic (even for a fantasy/romance). When the book switched to Luther’s POV, it’s like every thought and intention was for Diem. I get that they are basically soul mates but it just gives me the ick that everything about him revolves around her and he has no individuality. Not enough to dissuade me from continuing the read, but I don’t think I’ll be crying if he dies. Kind of sucks since he is the MMC.

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Entertaining story but average world building and characters

Reviewed: 03-29-24

Pros:
- diverse characters
- great imagery/descriptions
- entertaining story

Cons:
- not well written diverse characters
- could be condensed into one book
- focuses more on the humanity, not on survival (maybe not a con for some but not quite what I wanted).

Overall I liked the story and the first few books of this series really got me engaged. It kind of fell off towards the end though. Though there are diverse characters (race, sex/gender), they aren’t written very well and the main white male protagonist is the hero in the end and has the best character development. Oftentimes the POC are described as having “exotic” features or just having dark skin (from their POV!). As someone who is biracial, I’d never describe my features as being exotic. Spoiler warning, but I didn’t understand why Tom became mayor (why was he qualified?). The author completely threw out Patty’s character development and just stopped showing her POV despite her having insecurities being mayor.

Please don’t expect this to be an amazing story with an amazing cast of characters. It’s entertaining and you come to came for all the characters, but there’s nothing beyond that. Just another white male protagonist saving the day and being the most consistent character throughout the series.

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Disappointing and repetitive

Reviewed: 01-24-24

I really liked this story for the first hour, but quickly got tired of the banter and arguments between the FMC and MMC. MMC and the other male side characters repeatedly treat the FMC like a piece of property (I thought it wasn’t so bad for the side characters until ~15 hrs in). I’m ~3 hrs way from finishing but I’m not sure how much more I can take. I get angry every time I read this book and at this point I’m just hoping the FMC will take sweet revenge in the end. It got alittle too much for me when one of the male side characters callsd the FMC out for whining and that “other people are suffering as well” like dude the FMC is a slave…….. I think she deserves to be extremely upset about it. What is the theme of this first book? I also keep hearing about the wine cellar scene and I don’t think I’ve even gotten to that yet. How am I supposed to hate the MMC even more than I already do?!? As a side, I think this book could be drastically reduced to 6 hrs. the first ~10 hours is the same story and argument over and over again. The next 5 hrs is very similar, but things are progressing alittle more quickly. If I could redo the last several days, I don’t think I would have started this book. I may update if I get it the end… too invested in the possible revenge by FMC.

Update:
Really not sure how the author will redeem the MMC. I really dislike how the FMC is supposed to feel grateful for all that he’s done for her. The wine cellar scene definitely sealed the deal for me. TBH you can skip most of the first 10 hrs and alittle in the next 5 (though it gets alittle more interesting in terms of world building). The last few hrs were MUCH better but still frustrating. I don’t think I’ll be reading the next books (might just read up on a summary) unless they are included in the subscription. Kinda glad that I’m finished with this book!

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1 person found this helpful

Great but weird timeline

Reviewed: 09-21-23

I really like this series and I especially love the diversity. My only complaint is that the events in the book take place over just ONE DAY (the first book ~3 days). That would be fine but decisions are being made about loving/protecting people that they’ve just met (why would you put your life on the line for someone after just interacting with them for a few days…). I wish there was more logic/consistency in the timeline because it’s just so weird to think about, but it’s not so weird that it takes away from the story if you just ignore it.

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First Nora roberts novel

Reviewed: 06-20-23

This was my first successful read through one of Nora roberts novels. I really like how well crafted the overall plot was and the attention to detail. However, this book seemed pretty average to me. Much of the writing was dialog and explaining the world/the MC life and not action or “showing”. The end was a bit drawn out ( tho it all makes sense realistically) - I often felt like I was just living thru Morgan’s life and seeing her be happy, which is something I can easily do while playing Sims4. I’m super glad that the book ended the way it did, but it seemed very anticlimactic. There was so much building for the villain and it just subsided away. Maybe this is supposed to be more slice of life but I wasn’t completely captivated by the story. Safe to say I likely won’t be reading another Nora Roberts book unless the plot is REALLT interesting to me.

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Should have read the reviews

Reviewed: 04-06-23

I used a credit on this book after only reading the first few positive reviews. I really should have spent the time reading more reviews so that I wouldn’t buy this book. The plot is super 1 dimensional. Small details aren’t important and the side characters aren’t developed well (not to mention the main characters and their romance). I don’t understand why the MCs love each other. This book started off so strong but it just fell alway and completely deteriorated. I’m 57 mins away from the end but I don’t care enough about the characters to want to continue reading. I’m sure that fan fiction is x100 better than this book, and that’s mostly free. I’m not a writer but I feel like I can write better than this.

(Warning spoilers) Not to mention the purity culture at the beginning and weird harem agreement at the end is totally unnecessary. I get that some cultures or societies are extremely conservative but usually in fantasy or other sci-fi books there is a reason or important for there being conservative views (there are none in this book…). The whole logic behind the harem is kind of stupid. Nothing is going to change his situation unless the MC can have children (which they should just try…). I also don’t understand that if this was so important monogamy shouldn’t even be a thing in their kingdom. Harems should be a thing if it’s so hard for the king/queen to have children with someone of non-equal magical ability.

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Meh

Reviewed: 03-12-23

I really liked this book series at first but I started to really lose interest towards the last 1/4 of the first book. I was hesitant to try this book because the author seems like a man and I was concerned about the quality of the female characters in this book. He does an okay job but I really lost it when he described the main female character as wanting her husband back partly for “protection”. Furthermore he described another female character as being pretty without needing make up. The story also had weird and drawn out events that didn’t make sense or just seemed stupid. That being said, I probably won’t finish the other books in the box set and wouldn’t suggest anyone else spend the money on this series. Really wish I could return this.

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Not what I expected

Reviewed: 12-19-22

I love zombie/post-apocalyptic books and this was definitely a fun read. Towards the end it was so hard to put the book down. It really wasn’t as bad as some people are making it out to be, but I think the hate may come from the ending. I definitely wasn’t expecting it and it put a bad taste in my mouth (spoiler: it definitely made me a bit depressed and I couldn’t read anything quite as serious), but if you consider it like a horror movie it’s actually pretty good and cool. I think I would have liked to know the ending before reading ( because who likes to expect something but get something else?), so just as a warning (SPOILER) the ending is not a happy ending.

That being said, I CANNOT wait to see how torment is connected to the infinite series. I’m contemplating reading Jeremy Robinson’s infinite II, but I don’t want to have to read infinite I and NPC before reading infinite II. I just finished Khaos after reading the Dark AND IM SO EXCITED TO SEE HOW TORMENT WILL BE CONNECTED IN SINGULARITY!!! it seems like torment doesn’t have a sequel, and though it may not have a sequel for the main characters in torment, but the aftermath and world created by torment will have a sort of sequel!! Also, I’m excited to see that some group of characters will have a chance against these zombies!

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Happy with the ending

Reviewed: 12-13-22

Although I agree with some commenters that the premise of much of the conflict at the end of this book series could have been avoided, I thoroughly enjoyed these last two books, especially the ending. I’m sad that not everyone survived, but I’m also happy that the world isn’t ruled by (SOFT SPOILER) Mariana (sorry can’t spell!). I also liked that these characters seemed real - no one was perfect.

I’ll admit that Alex does become alittle irritating, but I think that only shows how most people would react in her position (and tbh you need to be confident to do her work). Also, I can’t help but think that reactions (including my own) could be different if Alex was a man and not a woman. I’ve watched countless movies/shows where the (mainly male) MC is arrogant and a bit self centered, but they don’t receive so much hate or criticism. Part of me was irritated that Alex didn’t have much compassion for the “true” vampires dying but I think that also showed us that Alex really doesn’t think vampires are living creatures, which is extremely likely how a majority of us would react in her situation. In that sense it was alittle cool to get a snippet of potential discrimination towards the vampires! Interesting world building!

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