Review: Satisfying conclusion
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 10 15, 2013
First reviewed at Red Hot BooksWARNING: While this is a spoiler-free review for this book, it is not for the series.  This is the final book in the trilogy.When we last left off, Javier had arrived in the nick of time to save Ellie and Camden from certain death at the hands of Travis Raines.  Now, they have to work together to achieve their respective goals.  For Javier, get his sister Violetta safe and enact his revenge and wrest control of the cartel from Travis.  For Ellie, to rescue Gus who's been kidnapped by Travis and find out why her mother was with him.  For Camden, it is to help Ellie get Gus and to see her safe away from Javier.Just like the other books, the action kicks off from the beginning and doesn't let up till the end.  Every time I thought Halle would wimp out and let a character off the hook, she ramped it up and made them push through and I heartily respect that.  This isn't a hearts and flowers kind of book and Halle, for the most part, kept it consistent.Team Javier - I still feel like he's the most interesting of the three, but bad guys generally are.  Readers really get to see how obsessed with power Javier his and the lengths that he will go to in order to achieve his goals.  Even when he appeared to be doing something "kind", he had his own agenda.Team Camden - I liked him a whole lot more in this book.  He seemed to grow a pair and quit letting people push him around.  His actions really showed his growth as he began to accept the things he needed to do to survive.Team Ellie - Halle has said all along that the trilogy is Ellie's journey.  She comes into her own, in a way.  I would have liked it if she had accepted her dark side, because when she's bad, she is a badASS.  I loved the scenes of her kicking ass.  She showed a confidence that had been lacking all along.  HOWEVER, detracting from that was all the internal self-loathing that had gotten really old really quick.  I really wish that Ellie would have grown beyond the need for a man and stood apart from either man, but unfortunately, her neediness wins out.Even though it didn't end the way I might have wanted it to, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this series.  If Halle keeps writing dark suspense like this, I'll be the first in line to buy.Rating: B+*ARC provided by Forever (Grand Central Publishing) via NetGalley