Oath Bound (Unbound, #3)

by Rachel Vincent

[Melanie]

Review originally posted at RabidReads.com.

I’ve been on a bit of relisten kick lately, ever since late last year. I decided I would relisten to this series. It is one that I really loved and since wasn’t reviewing when I read them the first time, I thought now would be a great time.

So, the Bound series. It is a PNR series that takes place in a world just like the one we live in today. However, their are people in this world that have special abilities. These “skills” (not a complete list, but the most important ones):

Trackers, people who can try by blood or name
Readers, people who can tell when a person is lying
Travelers, people who can travel from one dark shadow to another
Blinders, people who can create darkness around them
Jammers, people who block the signature of other skilled people. Many hare highly paid nannies to help keep children from being found by trackers
Binders, people who can bind you a contract to the point that it can kill you to break that contract.
That last one is really important. There are two “leaders” in this city. Ruben Cavazos and Jake Tower. They each control about a third of the city, with the last third being “free”. These guys are kinda like mob bosses. They offer to help people who are desperate and then sign these people to an unbreakable contract. Their underlings get chainlinks tattooed on their bodies to show their affiliations. The more links, the longer you’re in the syndicate or how long you’ve signed up for.

I will also mention that names have a lot of power in them. Every Skilled person has four names, first, last and two middle. Each parent assigns a middle name, but they don’t tell the other. This way, only the actual person knows all four names. That is something that they hold close and rarely share. They even go so far as to name their children where the first name can be shorten, so that you aren’t using your full name on a daily basis.

In this story, we follow Kori’s brother, Kris. He’s a shadow walker just like Kori. He and his sister have been working to save people from the Tower syndicate. When he breaks into Jake Tower’s house and sees a woman in a yellow scarf. He grabs her and saves her from Tower’s men from shooting her. Sera has a lot of secrets. One is really big. She’s Jake Tower’s illegitimate child. He never even knew she existed. She goes to the Tower residence because she’s hoping that long lost family will help her track down the people who killed her family.

This book was a great wrap up to the series, though I would’ve loved to see more of this world. It is such an interesting world and great characters. This series is a fairly dark series (though not as dark as the series that comes after it, Menagerie, which I also love). There are some things that might trigger some people, but you don’t see the abuse on the page, just reference to it after the fact. It is also great that you see these characters overcome the horrors that they’ve had to deal with.

Narration
Gabra Zackman does an amazing job with the narration of this series. She keeps the voices consistent from book to book. I like her men and women’s voices. As these stories are told from first person POV that switches between the hero and heroine, Zackman even changes the narration parts so you can tell if the male or female is telling the story. Made the switch of POVs very easy to follow.