Review: Perfect Ending to a Great series...
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 10 23, 2013
The Return by Melissa Douthit is the final book in The Legend of the Raie’Chaelia trilogy and my favorite!  I have really enjoyed this trilogy which includes The Raie’Chaelia and The Firelight of Maalda and I looked forward to seeing how the story would wrap up and I wasn’t disappointed.  Melissa has a knack for building an intriguing fantasy world with great characters and plenty of action and adventure with the added touch of a little romance.  A great series for fantasy lovers!In The Return Chalice is reunited with her friends and the love of her life Jeremiah.  I’m not going to use the various names of different groups that comprise the story because it may be too confusing for those that haven’t read the books but I will say that Chalice is up for the fight of her life against an evil man that would like nothing better than to see her dead. Chalice is not that easily beaten though and she will use her smarts and special powers to save herself, her friends, and even bring her father back from a faraway place that the evil one put him in.  Ultimately they will all have to band together to fight the enemy but the question is – will Chalice live to talk about it?I adore Chalice and have from the first novel.  She is the reason I kept reading this trilogy – well I liked the story too.  I love how spunky, tough, and independent Chalice is.  I like reading novels with strong female characters and yet Melissa keeps her story believable because Chalice isn’t invincible despite her special powers.  Chalice is eighteen in The Return and she definitely hums to the beat of her own drum and refuses to be told what to do.  She’s a warrior and yet has a soft side. Her love Jeremiah I’m sure spends a lot of time pulling his hair out while trying to deal with her stubbornness.  Their love story has built from the first novel and is a sweet and pure love.The Return wraps up nicely. In fact both Chalice and Jeremiah come from two different cultures and are not able to marry so it was interesting to see how the author works her way around this.  There are also twists and turns I just wasn’t expecting and at one point in time I thought something was going to happen that I was most definitely not going to like but thankfully it didn’t.  I enjoyed this trilogy and my only complaint is that I’m sad the journey is over.