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crissilva's review against another edition
emotional
funny
hopeful
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
fictionalkate's review against another edition
2.0
I was excited to read Morg and Hope's story but I was a little disappointed with it.
The author spent a lot of time tying up loose ends in the series and less time directly focused on the eighth brother.
Kelly makes me want to scream. I feel like she's elitist and annoying. I wouldn't want her to be my queen. But still I like the idea of what Kelly represents. The otherworldly queen who rules without magic and yet is fair and brings forth different ideas in which to rule.
But the way Kelly does things us frustrating to me. Like how she extorts the people of her kingdom and how rude I find her to be to the peasants.
Also, this story has taught me how amazing chocolate is. It can even cure infertility.
Seriously, Hope needed to shut up with all the chocolate talk.
The author spent a lot of time tying up loose ends in the series and less time directly focused on the eighth brother.
Kelly makes me want to scream. I feel like she's elitist and annoying. I wouldn't want her to be my queen. But still I like the idea of what Kelly represents. The otherworldly queen who rules without magic and yet is fair and brings forth different ideas in which to rule.
But the way Kelly does things us frustrating to me. Like how she extorts the people of her kingdom and how rude I find her to be to the peasants.
Also, this story has taught me how amazing chocolate is. It can even cure infertility.
Seriously, Hope needed to shut up with all the chocolate talk.
sandylovesbooks's review against another edition
5.0
Sorry to see this series is at an end. I will have to read the series over again. Love this characters.
momthurber's review against another edition
Really enjoyable and full of funny moments.
shanbear16's review against another edition
3.0
The last book in this series is pretty "meh." I get that the last quarter of the book was meant to be super epic, but I found myself just skimming the chapters. The Convocation of the Gods was pretty cool, but didn't last nearly long enough to satisfy. Overall it felt like a weak ending to the series.
shinyfox's review against another edition
4.0
4.5 stars.
I loved this series. Each book I read had me wanting to get my hands on the next. Some books were hard for me to delve into and didn't command my full attention until about half way through (The Cat, The Flame are the two in question). The Mage didn't command my attention at first either, but about 75 pages in I was finally hooked and couldn't put it down.
There was one thing I found in this series that popped up in every single book. And in every single book I found myself annoyed and would start skimming paragraphs instead of reading them. Descriptions.
Ladies and Gentlemen, there really IS such a thing as over describing. I didn't need to know, in detail the clothing of the people, from their feet to their heads, or the architecture from the frame up. I found that the descriptions of these things did not add to the book but detracted from it and that disappointed me.
To focus on this particular book though...
The Mage. I've been looking forward to this story ever since I read the first book in the series "The Sword". However I feel like I was a little let down with this particular book. I gave it a 4.5 rating because it IS a wonderful book! I LOVED reading it and couldn't put it down; it tied up loose ends nicely and ended the series in a good way.
So if it was such a great book and I gave it 4.5 stars, why do I feel like it let me down?
Because I was looking forward to delving into Morg's relationship with Hope and I felt like the two main characters of this story (Morganen and Hope) were overshadowed by all the other things that needed to be ended and tied up and all the things going on with Kelly.
Not nearly enough sex scenes between the two of them (especially when you compare this book to the others in the series).
Also... As much as I love Hope I honestly skimmed the bits where she started raving about chocolate. There's only so much chocolate talk I can take in one book (no matter how delicious it is!).
I was sad that Koranen's wedding seemed to be ignored. I would have liked to actually read about the ceremony and gotten a real 'conclusion' for that bit of the plot. And I aslo wish there had been some sort of epilogue to go with the story. Just to go back to Nighfall and let us readers see what is going on and how everyone is doing. Did Koranen and Danau stay in Menomon and become guardians? Did they return to Nightfall? How about Morg! Is he still King? It would have been very nice to see some of these questions answered.
Out of all the books my very favorite one was 'The Storm', hands down, no question about it. I will be re-reading at least that one book from this series.
I loved this series. Each book I read had me wanting to get my hands on the next. Some books were hard for me to delve into and didn't command my full attention until about half way through (The Cat, The Flame are the two in question). The Mage didn't command my attention at first either, but about 75 pages in I was finally hooked and couldn't put it down.
There was one thing I found in this series that popped up in every single book. And in every single book I found myself annoyed and would start skimming paragraphs instead of reading them. Descriptions.
Ladies and Gentlemen, there really IS such a thing as over describing. I didn't need to know, in detail the clothing of the people, from their feet to their heads, or the architecture from the frame up. I found that the descriptions of these things did not add to the book but detracted from it and that disappointed me.
To focus on this particular book though...
The Mage. I've been looking forward to this story ever since I read the first book in the series "The Sword". However I feel like I was a little let down with this particular book. I gave it a 4.5 rating because it IS a wonderful book! I LOVED reading it and couldn't put it down; it tied up loose ends nicely and ended the series in a good way.
So if it was such a great book and I gave it 4.5 stars, why do I feel like it let me down?
Because I was looking forward to delving into Morg's relationship with Hope and I felt like the two main characters of this story (Morganen and Hope) were overshadowed by all the other things that needed to be ended and tied up and all the things going on with Kelly.
Not nearly enough sex scenes between the two of them (especially when you compare this book to the others in the series).
Also... As much as I love Hope I honestly skimmed the bits where she started raving about chocolate. There's only so much chocolate talk I can take in one book (no matter how delicious it is!).
I was sad that Koranen's wedding seemed to be ignored. I would have liked to actually read about the ceremony and gotten a real 'conclusion' for that bit of the plot. And I aslo wish there had been some sort of epilogue to go with the story. Just to go back to Nighfall and let us readers see what is going on and how everyone is doing. Did Koranen and Danau stay in Menomon and become guardians? Did they return to Nightfall? How about Morg! Is he still King? It would have been very nice to see some of these questions answered.
Out of all the books my very favorite one was 'The Storm', hands down, no question about it. I will be re-reading at least that one book from this series.
daydreamer0626's review against another edition
4.0
I always tend to get emotional when a series I've been reading/following for a long time comes to an end. I loved these books and I was really excited to read this book. However, I was a bit let down by some things sadly.
I was really interested to see how Morg and Hope's relationship goes, since they had essentially been courting each other since they met I believe in the first book. I wanted to see what challenges could happen since they already knew each other, and admitted how they felt many books ago.
The beginning threw me for a loop. It started off with characters I didn't recognize (and it actually made me think I had the wrong book on my Kindle. But after double checking, I just kept reading). The beginning was AWESOME! It started the book off with a twist that I never saw coming. The twist opens up the opportunity for a lot of conflicts that I had been wondering about with Morg and Hope's relationship. There were plenty of other twists that kept me reading. Granted I didn't yell or start talking to the book, like I usually do when I get overly excited about a part in a book, but they were still interesting.
Hope is probably one of my favorite characters (of the female ones anyway) and I loved reading about her and Kelly (my other favorite character). However, I did have some issues with the book though. The story line seemed to jump between chapters a bit (by that I mean there were gaps in the story from one chapter to the next where the story continued a few weeks later and such). I'm usually fine with this once and a while but it happened too much for my taste and left me asking "Well what happened in that time?" Granted, if the author didn't do that, the book probably would have been much longer and would have had many ho-hum moments, but I still would have liked to know what happened in those weeks we skipped.
The ending was cute, but not what I expected. This would have been a great time to do a time jump in an epilogue or something to see what happens to everyone we read about for the past 8 books. I won't post the questions that I have here (because that will give away precious details of the other books and this one), but I still have questions about what happens after the "Happily Ever After" moment.
Overall, this book was good (about 3.5/5 stars, but alas I can't give half a star so I rounded up). There are still questions I have about what happens next (which I don't particularly like having at the end of a series), and there were some personal quips I had that brought this books rating down. But I love Hope and the varying twists in the book kept this book from failing. Not my favorite of the series but still not bad :)
I was really interested to see how Morg and Hope's relationship goes, since they had essentially been courting each other since they met I believe in the first book. I wanted to see what challenges could happen since they already knew each other, and admitted how they felt many books ago.
The beginning threw me for a loop. It started off with characters I didn't recognize (and it actually made me think I had the wrong book on my Kindle. But after double checking, I just kept reading). The beginning was AWESOME! It started the book off with a twist that I never saw coming. The twist opens up the opportunity for a lot of conflicts that I had been wondering about with Morg and Hope's relationship. There were plenty of other twists that kept me reading. Granted I didn't yell or start talking to the book, like I usually do when I get overly excited about a part in a book, but they were still interesting.
Hope is probably one of my favorite characters (of the female ones anyway) and I loved reading about her and Kelly (my other favorite character). However, I did have some issues with the book though. The story line seemed to jump between chapters a bit (by that I mean there were gaps in the story from one chapter to the next where the story continued a few weeks later and such). I'm usually fine with this once and a while but it happened too much for my taste and left me asking "Well what happened in that time?" Granted, if the author didn't do that, the book probably would have been much longer and would have had many ho-hum moments, but I still would have liked to know what happened in those weeks we skipped.
The ending was cute, but not what I expected. This would have been a great time to do a time jump in an epilogue or something to see what happens to everyone we read about for the past 8 books. I won't post the questions that I have here (because that will give away precious details of the other books and this one), but I still have questions about what happens after the "Happily Ever After" moment.
Overall, this book was good (about 3.5/5 stars, but alas I can't give half a star so I rounded up). There are still questions I have about what happens next (which I don't particularly like having at the end of a series), and there were some personal quips I had that brought this books rating down. But I love Hope and the varying twists in the book kept this book from failing. Not my favorite of the series but still not bad :)
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