Meagon

I can't recommend these books enough! If you love dark fantasy, you'll fall in love with this series. Anne Bishop weaves an amazing epic that explores the fine line between good and evil. Her characters, male and female, are incredibly strong and well written. You care about all of them and can't wait to read the next page to find out whether they make it through or not. At first glance, some might worry that it's about a helpless witch that must rely on strong male characters, but it becomes clear as you get further into it, that the three main male characters rely on her strength just as much as she relies on them. Beautifully erotic at the right moments so that it's not a porn with story sprinkled in; like too many female fantasy authors seem to do nowadays.

Pretty bad, honestly. There's no real story... Cassia doesn't actually DO anything in the entire story, instead relying on the boys around her to handle things. There's a moment where all three of them are with her best girlfriend while the girl is having a panic attack. Cassia actually gets upset with them for not acting quickly enough when all she has to do is pull out her own Magical-Plot-Device-Pills and hand over a green one to one of her BEST FRIENDS to instantly calm her down. It's a trilogy, but I'm hitting the brakes hard here. Even teenager me wouldn't have been impressed with flat, robotic Cassia and her tepid love interests.

I can't decide if it's a high two star or a low three star.

Heartbreaking. An emotional story of what it truly means to be a parent, sacrifice. The writing style was not my favorite, which is the only reason it doesn't get five stars. I'm seriously shocked I breezed through it so quickly. Certainly a book I couldn't manage to put down very often. The thought that stayed with me through most of it was, would they have been any better off if the mother was still alive? Their scramble for resources seems like it would only be worse if she were there, but at the same time, the emotional support she could have offered both of them, having a second responsible adult around to keep lookout, etc... those seem like perks. I don't understand the willingness of people to give up. I wonder if she was suffering from postpartum and if she were only able to get the help that she needed, if she would have stayed. It's hard to say. I'm against suicide, but in the end, I believe we are the masters of our own destiny, and only we can decide what is right for us as individuals. You have to decide if your actions make you the good guy or not.

Every time I think I couldn't love this series more, Robert Jordan proves me wrong. I really am blown away by the man's talent to transport me so completely into not only another world, but different people's perspectives. I am surprised at how much I care for SO MANY of these characters now, and not just the ‘core group'. Even side characters play larger roles than you might first suspect. It's glorious storytelling.