Genre: Urban Fantasy (Alternate history, magic, spell casting, mystery, romantic elements)
Series: Book five in The Allie Beckstrom series
Original Language: English
Publisher: Roc
Country: United States
Publication Date: November 2, 2010
ISBN: 978-0451463623
Page Count: 368
My Rating: ★★★
Summary
Allie Beckstrom's lover, Zayvion Jones, is a Guardian of the Gate, imbued with both light and dark magic and responsible for ensuring that those energies don't mix. But Zayvion lies in a coma, his soul trapped in death's realm. And when Allie discovers that the only way to save Zayvion is to sacrifice her very own magical essence, she makes a decision that may have grave consequences for the entire world.
REVIEW
A rather lacklustre entry to the series. I had high hopes that the new setting, the trip into Death, would revive my waning interest in this series. Nothing like a change of scenery to perk you up, right?
Wrong!
Well, in Monk's hands it's wrong, anyway. The descriptions of the World of the Dead were so unimaginative it was almost laughable. Crumbling buildings was about the extent of it. Wow. So very vivid, it's like I can taste it.....only not.
The great rescue attempt of her lover, Zayvion was completed fairly early on so I was thinking we'd at least wrap that up and move on to a new mystery plot, but then he was in a coma for much of the book and without him, Allie really doesn't know her arse from her elbow, so she was pretty much just kicking around with Shame for the rest of the book.
In terms of plot- what little there was of it- there are previously dead folks walking around looking suspiciously more corporeal than they should. So it looks like the missing magic discs from the end of the last book have wandered into enemy hands. From here the plot was driven slowly and clumpily to the big end scene that wasn't. It had all the impact of a wet party popper.
This is where I get off the Allie Beckstom bus. I tried. I made it though five books but the character growth I needed to see hasn't happened and for once this one didn't end on a cliffhanger. So I'm outie. See ya. Bye, bye. Adios. Don't call me, I'll call you.
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