Review: good first half - unbelievable development of some characters - abrupt end
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 04 9, 2014
This book grew on me after it managed to patch up some of the awful mess the author left at the end of the first in the series.  And for the most part (with exceptions) the author resisted developing and immediately throwing away large groups of complex characters as in the first novel.  She does throw away some body parts, and develops the backstory of the old immortals which we already know she threw away.  But she makes it more awful by revealing they are thrown away not of necessity but by one lone and insignificant (and unbelievable in terms of character development) traitor combined with lazy order following by immortal warriors (also unbelievable).  I'm making it sound really bad, but the character development of the heroine and her companions is somewhat improved and more level than in the previous book.However, the book, though I enjoyed most of it, has two flaws that keep me from giving it an unequivocal positive rating.  One is the development of Basha, now a central character, is typically one dimensional and naive.  Basha simply didn't get where she is by being completely stupid, and so her actions at the end just aren't believable, which kind of ruins the story for me.The second flaw is that the ending chapters are formula Indiana Jones treasure hunting, as close to plagiarism as you can get without actually cutting and pasting from another work.  Doubly disappointing because the author proved earlier she is capable of much better.  And then the very end, the very last page, is completely incoherent, like cutting forward to a scene from a different book.Probably this is what the author meant to do, since obviously a sequel is planned, but it is not available yet.  My suggestion is, if you have not already started to read the series, to just wait until all three are available, because there is no conclusion and no satisfaction to the 2nd storyline.  We don't know what happens to Basha, the other immortals, nothing.  The author thinks she is very clever leading us to believe the heroine will be sacrificed, but she it too clever at leaving clues that this will not happen (not to mention that she has not developed another character to take her place in the 3rd book).  However, with another popular series having killed off the heroine in the third book (Divergent series), we can't be too cautious.  I simply don't read books where the heroine dies.  Plenty of that in real life.  I cannot read the last chapter before buying an ebook like I do with print books.  But I can write a review!  [thinly veiled warning to author regarding yet to be written third book!]