Review: Valerie Dearborn, Book Three
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 12 3, 2012
The Fey were weak, almost gone; their only chance of survival was to find the Sard, a mystical object that resembles a jewel. When used in combination with the Book of Life and Death, its power could restore Cerdewellyn, King of the Fey, to greatness. To save his people, Cer needs to make Valerie Dearborn, the last Empath, his new queen. But Val is fed up with all the supernatural crap in her life and wants only to return to her realm and live a normal life. The only real hold Cer has over Val is her feelings for Lucas, King of the Vampires, who is currently weak and chained in the dungeon. Cer looks forward to what he plans to do with Lucas, the vampire that slaughtered his people; however, in exchange for Valerie's aid, Cer promises not to kill Lucas for a certain amount of time and to listen to everything the dark creature has to say.Valerie's life is out of her control. She is in love with the most cold-hearted vampire ever created. To keep Lucas alive, she must help another king, Cer. But life with the Fey king would be no better than life with the vampire king. To make matters worse, Jack, the man she loves as a brother, has been transformed into a werewolf and has chosen to bond himself with Rachel, the vampire witch, instead of to her, his family. Bad news usually comes in threes, so it is no real surprise to Valerie when the spirit of Cer's dead love, Virginia Dare, begins to make herself known to Val.The fate of all Other races is about to be decided. Everything depends on who wields the Sard.*** THREE STARS! This is the third title of the series. It begins where the previous story left off. (I detest cliff hanger endings.) Valerie's story concludes in this episode, but a couple of threads are left dangling. The author may begin a new series if she so desires.This installment has a lot of suffering, a lot of pain and torture. The plot itself slows way down so that the character of Virginia Dare has her time in the spotlight. Because so much needs to be accomplished and several couples (Rachel/Jack, Cer/Virginia, Lucas/Valerie) need to be followed, sections of the story came across as rushed to me. Lucas's character goes from stone-cold-hearted to take-my-blood-so-you-may-escape,-because-your-mortal-life-means-everything-to-my-undead-heart. As for Virginia, her spirit takes over too swiftly and Valerie's return seemed a bit too easy for me to believe. I was totally disappointed in Marion.In my personal opinion, the events in this book should have been spread out over two titles. Doing so would have allowed the author to include more details and give room so that each character could have been well developed and their actions more believable. In fact, I would have preferred it if Dare's character were totally deleted. ***Reviewed by Detra Fitch of Huntress Reviews.