Review: Strong Sequel but many unanswered questions
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 09 9, 2012
The storyline continues from the first book in the trilogy.  Lea continues to learn more about the magical kingdom of Verlaine and tries to escape to get back to her kingdom of Lorian. If you did not read the first book in the series (Sanctuary), it will be very difficult to appreciate (and sometimes follow) the actions in this book.  Also note that although the Amazon page indicates that the first book is 326 pages and this is only 298 pages, this book felt longer than the first one... and I'm thinking it was as this one was about 7,300 locations on my Kindle while the first book was only slightly over 4,700 locations.The book is well-written without the grammar and spelling issues you sometimes see in independently published books (which I think this is).  There were several flaws about the story (discussed below) that would normally irritate me much more than they did in this book.  I think it was becaues the story was engrossing and I stayed up late reading it (without skipping around in the book, which I do if the story lags in places).I liked learning more about Lea.  However, from the hints we have been given about her background, I thought that she sometimes came across as too weak (giving up information unintentionally or letting her feelings be known through her expressions).  I liked the slow development of what (I hope) is a romance with Gabriel. I did like how she liked some people (such as Cecily) despite herself.  She is a flawed heroine and I appreciate the fact that she is not perfect.  I did want to shake her several times as I felt it took her way too long to accept that Verlaine contains magic and there are many worlds and realms that she is not aware of. I do hate books that have the heroine accept the seeminingly impossible in a page or two.  However, all of the previous book and much of this one has her in denial about the existence of magic and I felt that was a bit too drawn out.To me this wasn't a "five star" book for two primary reasons.  The first is that it ends on a cliffhanger (the same as the previous book in the series).  I always feel that this is a bit of a "cheat" by the author to get you to buy the next book in the series and cliffhangers always bother me as they are a personal pet peeve of mine!  The second reason is that there are so many unanswered questions in this book.  We left book one with a lot of questions (who is Lea and what is her role in Lorien, how will she escape Verlaine, what happened to her when she was captured in Makliaven, etc.).  NONE of those items were answered (although we got hints of things) AND we have MORE unanswered questions (such as what happened to Gabriel's father and who is Lea similar to .... there are others I won't discuss for fear of giving spoilers). Thus, while the first book had unanswered questions and I felt they weren't too distracting, I expected more progress in this book to answering many of these questions for the reader.However, overall I enjoyed the book and, as long as the third book in the trilogy is reasonably priced, I will get that book to see how the story concludes.