Review: Brilliant!
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 06 17, 2013
A sense of urgency is felt from word one in the fourth installment of "The Rise of The Aztecs" series. This book had me on the seat of my pants from start to finish; even the calmer scenes were filled with an air of stressful expedience, a sense of fear of what the future could bring, and all the characters troubles and shenanigans are felt even when not yet revealed. As the events unfold you begin to see all the characters separate timelines converging into a single line of chain events...almost a biblical unfolding of scenes in an "x begot y, whom begot z" manner. As the "begots" were revealed, the sense of urgency and drama felt by all characters is easily felt by the reader. Ms. Saadia masterfully brings it all together in a series of events at the end that, even when I was not surprised, seeing my suspicions come to light in those fateful words still left me surprised and astonished.For me this book was different from the others in the series in that a finality was expressed early on in a very subtle, "hooking you in" manner...a manner that had me setting the book down to imagine how I would end the story before reading on to see how close I was to the results in the final scenes. I was very close, though please note that I am not stating that the outcome was predictable...I have just become very familiar with the authors style and was able to put a few things together early on.Ms. Saadia's ability to keep you on your toes, to make you pause at certain events, while taking you on a clear path to the finish line makes for a great ending to an amazing series. In many ways, the story mimicked life for all of us: you know something is coming...you see it happening in front of you...and yet you are still surprised at how much emotion it brings out of you. That is the essence of this book.One final note: I would love to see this saga adapted to screenplay at some point. It would make for a tremendous film or theater event.