Review: Doesn't Work Well As Stand-Alone
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 06 8, 2014
There is much to love about Southern Cross. Jen Blood has a knack for storytelling. The characters are multidimensional, with depth to their emotions and secrets they'd rather not share. The plot moves along at a good speed throughout, never so fast that it forces us to take leaps and never lagging. Blood's writing style easily sucks us into her fictional world.Unfortunately, for me the problem area overshadowed the quality of the writing. I have not read the first two books in this series, and Southern Cross does not work well as a stand-alone. A large thread of the plot here is drawn from the earlier books, to the degree that I never totally understood the point of what happened in this story. The author does her best to offer bits and pieces from the previous book(s), but it's not enough to grasp the concept in its entirety. I felt like something was always dangling just beyond my reach. Consequently, I didn't fully understand the characters or their motivations.The way this book ended, it's obvious that the story will continue into book #4. We don't get closure with the plot.If you read this series in order from start to finish, I have no doubt it could easily rate 5 stars. But I would not recommend reading this one on its own.