Review: Sad but satisfying
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 08 27, 2012
This story tugs at the heartstrings and I am glad to have read it.  Rhiannon needed her own story.  She was been an outlying character in the first two where it was painfully obvious that she was deeply misunderstood.  She is less relatable for most modern women than Capri and Blythe, the protagonists from the first two books, but that doesn't make her any less sympathetic.  Her parents are incapable of showing her their affection and in order to cope with that void Rhia hardens herself.  She fashions herself into a person who can exist without love, no mean task.  She appears snobby and aloof because she has no idea how to show or accept love and holds herself apart.  It is satisfying to see her happy ending, but it is obvious that she has a lot of healing and growing to do before any relationships will come easy for her.This book is as excellently written as the first two in the Dryad Quartet.  The setting is rich and the characters believable.  Katie Jennings is a very talented writer and these are excellent examples of YA fantasy romance.  This one is filled with angst and unspoken desires.  Rhia, like Mother Earth herself, is rich, mysterious, and completely taken for granted.  Each book is molded by the main character's Dryad ability.  A Life Earthbound, like Rhiannon, is solid and slower moving than air or fire.  Every reader will have their favorite because one will speak to them more strongly than the others, but, if they are like me, every reader will be driven to read the next and the next.  I look forward to reading the final book and getting the conclusion to this storyline.  There are some bad guys who have theirs coming.  Can the Dryads put their differences aside and work as a team to give it to them?