Review: A strong continuation of the series
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 03 23, 2014
Picking up where Reborn left off, Unforgiven, the third novel in the Wanderers series, tells the tale of Ella's mad dash to Ireland to search for Tristan and the subsequent consequences of taking off. It picks up the interest and the spark that The Wanderers had for me that flagged in Reborn.While felt that there were more technical errors (i.e., misspellings, wrong homonyms and other word choices, etc.) in this novel than the previous two--or perhaps I just noticed it more--one thing that certainly improved in Unforgiven was the pacing. The previous two books in the series suffered from idling of pace, where several chapters would go by without much of anything happening. It made the books feel longer than they should have been, and it was difficult to trudge through the slow parts.Although Unforgiven's length is similar to the other installments, it was the first that I felt I just didn't want to stop reading. Once I got back into Ella's story, I was hooked. I wanted to know what would happen when she found Tristan, what consequences she would face from her no-goodbyes-drop-everything jaunt to Ireland, I wanted to know what would happen with Roman. The twist at the end regarding the identities of a few of the characters was a definite zinger. I had originally had a suspicion when the character was introduced, but I had dismissed the notion. I was surprised to have it confirmed in this book.There were a few things that niggled about the book. There were many loose ends, which I hope will be resolved in upcoming novels. Many things were introduced and only barely explained (if at all), and then the story moved on. I can't help but feel that some of them should be important later. The next thing? Holy infidelity, Batman. I was quite surprised by the amount of cheating that occurred in the story from so many different characters. And in most cases, there seemed to be little or no remorse. As a very strong opponent of cheating, this bothered me to some extent. It doesn't seem like a healthy base for a relationship--whichever partner the cheater chooses. And I suppose I would hope that there would be more remorse involved.The last biggie was that very end of the novel felt a bit off to me. It was rather abrupt, and I felt like Ella fell back into making questionable choices. It seemed like Ella had finally made up her mind, but in the end, she was sharing a tender moment with the other one. I understand the scariness and trauma that occurred would make her latch on to whichever had arrived first on the scene, but I can't help but wonder what will happen when they are discovered. Ella put a lot of work into rebuilding her relationship. I can't help but feel that the night at the masquerade ball shattered that, and I'm very curious to see how things will go from there.I'm glad to have one major threat out of the way, but I know it's not going to end there. Too many loose threads were left in the story, too many warning signs and potential dangers were highlighted for me to think that Ella will be even remotely safe. I look forward to reading the next installment of The Wanderers to see what's in store for Ella and the cast of characters surrounding her. If you enjoyed the previous two novels, you'll definitely want to pick this one up.This book was obtained freely from the author, Jessica Miller, in exchange for an honest review.