BOOK THREE: ASCENDANCE TRILOGY. War has come to Carthya. It knocks at every door and window in teh land. And when Jaron learns that King Bargan of Avenia has kidnapped Imogen in a plot to bring Carthya to its knees, Jaron knows it is up to him to embark on a daring rescue mission. But everything that can go wrong does.
Sometimes in a book you will have a mixed cast of characters that you love, or a certain relationship is written so well you read to see where they go and what happens with the people you hope always stay friends. The Shadow Throne is neither of these things to me. It is all Jaron. This one, singular character has pulled me through the entire trilogy. Though there is a whole stage of players, the spotlight is firmly hooked to our one main guy who entertains, perseveres and as usual, triumphs.
Where this book fails to achieve a perfect rating is a combination of minor issues. Number one - repetition. The beautiful thing about book one, The False Prince, was the surprise ending. In book two, The Runaway King, Jennifer uses the tense situation to let Jaron's plans become...a surprise ending. Now in the final installment, The Shadow Throne, Jennifer repeats that pattern to "surprise" readers again. After using this technique so well in book one, it's a very hard thing to surprise readers again quite so cleverly. This book tried but failed to fool me on a few tricks and that made the premise feel tired to me. The second issue I had with The Shadow Throne is my own pet peeve. I'm not big on war books and this was all about war. If not for Jaron I wouldn't have even tried to read this novel based on the synopsis. Jennifer does a good job writing mid-grade level war without any graphic descriptions but it's not my cup of tea any day of the week.
As much as I enjoyed Jaron, I am glad this series is done so Jennifer can branch out in a fresh way. I very much look forward to who and where her pen takes us next!
- Miss Gevious
- Sat, 03/01/2014 - 16:23
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