Book ReviewEmerald Green

Reviewer's Rating: 
3
Don't you hate a fence sitter, and yet, this is where this book falls, not bad but not great.
Author: 
Category: 
Publisher: 
Henry Holt and Company, 2013.
Synopsis: 

BOOK THREE: RUBY RED TRILOGY. Gwen has a destiny to fulfill, but no one will tell her what it is.  She's only recently learned that she is the Ruby, the final member of the time-traveling Circle of Twelve, and since then nothing has been going right. She suspects the founder of the Circle, Count Saint-German, is up to something nefarious, but nobody will believe her. And she's just learned that her charming time-traveling partner, Gideon, has probably been using her all along.


It's a sequel kind of month for me.  I have not one, not two, not even three but FOUR sequels on my reading shelf.  It will be interesting to see which author has the best follow up - especially when I don't have the time to go back and reread everyone's first novel.  Ideally, you gobble up a series like a tasters box of lindt chocolates.  Each is unique, each is different but they are all made from the same mold.  Your palate remembers the goodness since you are going straight from one to the other.  At the end, you can easily say which was your favorite.  But if, like this pile of books in front of me, you've left lots of time in between books, a sequel must have a certain pick up from the first book to take you back into that tasters choice, to remind you of everything that has passed for the characters. In the case of Emerald Green, the remembering was a bit painful.

This series is bound to be confusing simply because of the time travel factor.  I personally can't give any suggestions on how to make it less complicated, but it made for a botched whosit, whatsit, wheresit? when I started it.  By the middle of the book I was back on track which makes me strongly recommend you read these in sequence without great gaps of time.  Lucky for you, all have been published so you're good to go!

Beyond my stilted series confusion, Emerald Green manages to tie together all the loose threads from both historical and present questions cooked up in the first two books.  Lucy manages to find out who her real parents are, Gideon discovers why Lucy led him into a trap in the past and the oh so cryptic prophesy regarding the closing of the circle is answered.  There were times this novel felt a bit cliché and others where the surprise answer was well worth the pages read, but overall, I can't say I loved it.  I did enjoy the relationship between Lucy and her best friend Lesley - well written, great dialogue and from my point of view the true gold in this book. 

It would be great if someone read all three novels in a row and told me I was flat wrong.  I always want a book to be great, so I hope for you series readers out there, it ends as something more for you when all three are sampled together.

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