Review: Skippable
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 05 12, 2012
***NOTE MY REVIEWS OFTEN CONTAIN SPOILERS***The Clue Hunt has been over for seven months and Ian Kambra is planning to go to America and tell Amy Cahill that he likes her.  For the first time in his life he's nervous and he doesn't know why.  But when the night before his trip he learns his mother have been released from prison, he wonders if the son of her parents killer should even go at all.I was kind of into this story at the beginning because Amy and Dan Cahill were changed by the clue hunt, maybe everyone else was as well.  So I was willing to accept that Ian's personality might be a little different.  I am not however willing to accept that Amy and Ian aged two years in seven months.  Yes Amy is 16 during the Cahills vs Vespers series.  However it says in book one of that series that two years have passed since the clue hunt, hence Amy would then be 16 since she was 14 during the clue hunt and Ian was her age.  She did not turn 16 seven months after being 14 and neither did Ian.  Next issue if Ian and Natalie's parents disowned them, why do they have the family home?  Daddy's hiding, not in jail.  And since when is the Lucian stronghold in the Kabra family home?  We've been to the Kabra's house before during the Clue Hunt, and the stronghold wasn't there last time.  And if you compare the descriptions between our Clue Hunt visit and this story it seems the children must have used their money for a total remodel.  Also the story in Vespers Rising was like what - five months after the clue hunt? In that story Amy, Dan, Fiske and Nellie were living in the guest house on Grace's property planning to rebuild the mansion.  What did they like magic it built, fully furnished and trashed in two months?  And while Amy does kind of lead the Cahills during the Cahills vs the Vespers she's never proclaimed the head of family.  Maybe if I could ignore all the things different in Riley's version of the Cahill family I might have liked this story, but instead I was getting so irritated that I wanted to throw my Nook.  The story offers nothing in educational value and little in action.  It did however have a decent flow with fast pacing.Characterization for Ian and Amy was decent.  Amy was exactly how I've always pictured her and the changes in Ian were realistic.  They both had flaws and strengths.  The problem with this story wasn't so much that characters that were off, it was everything else.Overall this is another take it or leave it story that doesn't really add anything to the series.  The best I can say is I liked the beginning.