chymerra
Written on Dec 7, 2016
From what I can gather (I haven’t read book 1) Elizabeth Camden (aka Beata) was involved in an attack against the E’mani…who are creepy pale aliens. Her allies are the Fost, long time enemies of the E’mani and who have magical abilities (I guess, from what I have read). During this skirmish, quite a few friends and one enemy were killed. I am going to go out on a limb and say that this book starts a few weeks after that attack.
I could not connect with Beata and actually disliked her during a good part of the book. She came across, to me, as abrasive and insecure. She had this hot guy who wanted to do the equivalent of marrying her and she hid the freaking bracelets and wouldn’t tell him where they were when he asked. So let’s add childish to that list too. My feelings did change towards her but I had to struggle to not to let them slide back into the dislike category.
Now, saying that, I did feel bad for her during her flashbacks. Back to when she was with the E’mani. I actually shuddered when reading those scenes…they were that bad. I wouldn’t wish what she went through on my worse enemy.
I think the middle of the book is when I started changing my feelings towards Beata. To suffer such a tragedy was unthinkable and I cried with her. But to go off and not tell her husband….not the best decision she made. Then all of the assumptions that she was making when Marin and the other Fost woman were immature. Even I, as a reader, could see that nothing was happening with Marin. I really wanted to reach through the book, slap her and say “Stop being silly before you lose him for good.”
The end of the book was fantastic, with a ton of action and one heck of an ending.