Wildfire - Ilona Andrews (Hidden Legacy #3)

I have fabulous news for those following this series: we're getting three more books.  But not about Nevada--no no, instead the new ones will take place a few years down the road, and will feature Nevada's younger sister Carolina as the main character.  This is excellent news, not just for fans of the series but for Wildfire itself, because by far the weakest part of the book was the ending, which was wildly incomplete.

This book picks up where the last one left off.  Nevada has to face down that her grandmother, the most powerful truth-oriented mage, Victoria Tremaine, who wants to bring Nevada to heel as a member of House Tremaine.  To ward her off, Nevada could declare her own House Baylor, but it means putting not only herself but her relatives in the spotlight and revealing all of the secrets they've kept so carefully hidden.  And then there's what declaring herself as a House could potentially do to Nevada's relationship with Rogan.  Oh, and you know, the whole thing where people are still trying to bring down the government.  You know, the day to day stuff.

Overall, this book was well-constructed.  The main and subplots tied together well.  Nevada and Rogan's relationship wasn't in the spotlight, but the strain placed on it by their circumstances were evident, and despite a few snafus, they handled things as adults.  There's nothing worse than a romantic conflict that could be resolved by the characters literally talking to each other for five minutes, and that's what Nevada and Rogan did when necessary--talked it out.

Some awesome new aspects of the Hidden Legacy came to light here, too--the history behind siren powers, the people who keep the House records and how they keep people from interfering with trials, a look at how these powers can be applied in the practical world.  For example, the applications of having powers over fungi.  It sounds lame, but when you factor in making them rapidly mutate in the search for new antibiotics, that's suddenly a lot more practical and a lot more profitable.  All of these things play in very well.  But as I mentioned above, this book had a big flaw at the end, and that's that it felt drastically in complete.  The main overarching plot of the series is not resolved at all--which is great now that we're getting three more books, but remember, this was put forth as the last book in a trilogy and those three extra books weren't planned when this was released, which makes a sloppy ending a huge flaw.  There's also an annoying thing with a past love interest (well, not really love interest, but kind of?) of Rogan's coming back up--he's not pursuing her, but she's pursuing him, hard core, and he definitely doesn't shut it down as much as he should have.  You can still care for and support someone while explicitly saying, "There never was and never will be anything romantic between us."

Overall, I did really enjoy this.  I'm glad to see there will be three books about Carolina, because she was definitely my favorite character in these books, and where the authors left her was ripe for development.  But those books are going to be a long time coming, so for now...

4 stars out of 5.

Days of Blood & Starlight - Laini Taylor (Daughter of Smoke & Bone #2)

I was so excited to read this sequel to Daughter of Smoke and Bone after devouring that first book.  Taylor had built up such a wonderous world and conflict, and I loved the reincarnation premise that the romance revolved around.  It was all right up my alley.  But with so much deliciousness in the first book, I was apprehensive that the second volume would fall victim to the dreaded "second book syndrome."  Did it?

Well...kind of.  This is a book in which not a heck of a lot actually happens, at least on one half the book.  Karou has found a place for the surviving chimera to live, a kasbah in Morocco, and has taken up Brimstone's mantel as a resurrectionist in hopes of reviving her shattered people.  On the other side, Akiva has returned to Eretz and the other seraphim, convinced that Karou is dead after finding a thurible with her name on it in his search for her.  Meanwhile, Karou's friend Zuzana and her boyfriend Mik are in search of Karou themselves, following what they think is a string of clues Karou left in a single email she sent letting them know she was still alive.

There's not a lot of forward motion in this book.  Karou never really leaves the kasbah, and Akiva spends a lot of time pining and talking about revolution before he decides to actually do anything.  The thing is, that didn't seem to actually matter in this book.  Taylor's writing remains so lush and riveting that even though the forward motion was minimal, I kept reading because I wanted to know more about these characters.  And their inner struggles also progressed here; for Karou, she wants to help bring her people back and turn the tide against the seraphim, but becomes increasingly aware of the price that might bear.  For Akiva, it's pretty much the same thing--and so, once again, Karou and Akiva are facing exile from their peoples.  It's a tale as old as time, Romeo and Juliet on steroids, except...well, Karou gets into that "except" herself.  And while this book was a bit slow in overall pace, it was still evenly paced, unlike the first book which had a good first two-thirds and then a lopsided and slow final third.  I was glad to see that more even pacing throughout, and felt that, even though this wasn't a "fast" book, it didn't fall prey to the typical symptoms of second book syndrome.  Of course, everything is still ultimately set up for the third book, which is the fate of all second books in trilogies, and at the end everything has truly gone to hell in a handbasket--but that's for the next installment to deal with.

Overall, absolutely lovely still.  Not quite as vibrant as the first, but with better pacing and still a very solid story, and with a great setup for the third book.

4 stars out of 5.

Street Fair - Jeffrey Cook and Katherine Perkins (Fair Folk Chronicles #2)

Street Fair is the second book in Jeffrey Cook and Katherine Perkins' Fair Folk Chronicles.  It follows Megan, a teenager who has recently discovered that she's a half-faerie princess, and her friends as the Goblin Market comes to town, and brings with it a host of unforeseen trouble that deals with Gaelic mythology, particularly that of Balor and the Fomoiri.

I had some difficulty with the first of the Fair Folk Chronicles because it really made faeries much more sugary-sweet than they are traditionally said to be.  That's still the case here; despite a bit of a bloodthirsty toast at one point, even the Unseelie court is kind of like a bunch of teenagers who just like to hang around and play pranks on each other rather than be menacing in any meaninful way.  The Seelie court is basically all sweetness and light.  Ashling the pixie continues to annoy me beyond all reason.  However, the story as a whole appealed to me and agreed with me much more, and that's because of the topic.  The integration of the Fomoiri and Balor really hit a sweet spot for me, and I can tell you exactly why: because I associate it with Diane Duane's Young Wizards series, and specifically the fourth book, A Wizard Abroad, which deals with the same subject though in a different way.  That actually really helped re-orient myself regarding how to look at this book.  Until that topic started to come in, I was looking at the Fair Folk books as young adult books, but they're really not.  I can't remember exactly how old the main characters are (though Lani can drive, so they must be about sixteen), but in writing and subject, these books are much more middle-grade than young adult.  There is very light kissing, but also a lot of parental supervision and the whole thing is very clean, which is really more characteristic of the middle-grade than the young-adult age group these days.  The same goes for the Young Wizards books.

As for the book itself... This is obviously much more of a "series" book than the first one is.  It has a plot of its own, albeit one that involves a lot of running around and not actually doing a much, The integration of these parts of Gaelic mythology are pretty cool, and I think it would be a good way to get younger readers interested in such topics.  But it also sets up for a continuance, which the first book in the series didn't.  Book 3 (A Fair Fight) will clearly deal with the set-up from here, and I'm curious to see if the fourth book (All's Fair) will continue on from Book 3 or if it will be more of a standalone story like the the first volume was.  Seeing Megan gain some more control of her abilities, and realize some of the repercussions of dealing with faeries, was pretty neat.  At the same time, though, much of the book did end up reading like set-up for the next one.  Some of the elements also didn't seem to fit for me.  For example, the main villain is known as the Butterfly Collector to the main characters, and apparently is the person who was behind the ruination of Ashling's wings.  But he doesn't seem to have done this more than once; now, I'm not saying that it's not bad to have only done it once, because clearly it was, but why Collector?  That indicates multiple times.  Was this something that was brought up in Book 1 but that I forgot?  If so, disregard, but it was a bit discordant to me.  Also, as I mentioned before, the plot seems to involve a lot of running around and fight scenes, but very little of that actually advanced the plot.  It was more filler until the higher-ups decided to do something--and most of it was incredibly stupid of the characters to do in the first place, something that they acknowledged but then proceeded on with anyway because "there weren't other options" even though there really were.

I'm interested to see where the next book here goes; there are definitely indications that all chaos is about to break loose.  Now that I've been able to re-orient my view of these books, they do agree with me more, and I think these would be good options for middle-grade students interested in mythology-based fantasy--but I would not go so far as to put them as young adult, given that the heavier themes characteristic of young adult books are pretty much entirely absent in this series.

3.5 stars out of 5.