Review: Unsatisfactory conclusion to a failed series
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 10 13, 2011
This is the conclusion of a trilogy (Black Moon,Amber Moon (Moon Trilogy Part II)).  Characters from the first two stories do make an appearance, but it is clear that the author designed these as three stand-alone stories.That decision didn't work well for me as a reader, so I want to address that first and then come back to my thoughts about this specific part of the story.When you're going to have your plot involve the destruction of the known world via mega-powerful artifacts, it's strange to have the treatment of the plot be so lightweight.  The author is using that plot as a vehicle to bring three couples together, but it's too significant of a plot line to be treated so carelessly.  In the end, you don't really care about the end of the world because you're missing so much necessary information.  Why would Elijah kill Jack's entire family and then leave him to get older, wiser, and stronger before their final showdown?  How come nobody with powerful magic could tell what Jack's true nature was?  Why would Mirie decide to get pregnant instead of helping avoid the destruction of the world?  Why not save the world and then get pregnant?  Why not enlist the dragons as allies earlier in the process?  Instead of helping us see how the different creatures work together, everybody just shows up when they need to.  How much more interesting would it have been to have this be the story of the Committee, working together with (good) werecreatures, elves, dragons, etc, to avoid this serious threat?In this specific story, Bevill's problem - as it was in the other two stories - is how to bring her main characters together in a believable way.  In the first two stories, she used the "fated mate" cliché - they see each other and immediately know they are to be together.  In this one, there are elements of that, but it is more of an "you annoy me so much I love you" thing, hardly less of a cliché.  It's difficult to believe that these characters could make it so far in their association without having a candid conversation, but we're expected to believe that.A plot that could be exciting is treated as a throwaway throughout three stories so the author can bring us the stories of three couples that she can't even make convincingly fall in love - both aspects of this series, and this particular story, are completely dissatisfying.