Reviews

A Soul For Vengeance by Crista McHugh

shelovestoread81's review

5.0

This book was okay but I felt there was to much Zara and Kell. I hope the next book has Arden in it.

denizyildiz's review

4.0

I really like this series. So I was rather excited to get the ARC for this. I just wanna make a comment on the covers though...
So this was the cover of the first book when it was first published

and then it was changed to this.....

which is in accordance the covers designed for the following two books.

The reason I mentioning this? I really liked the first version. 
The reason I picked up a copy of  A Soul for Trouble? Yep, the cover. Then I read the blurb, it sounded interesting- the rest is history as they say. To be honest I probably wouldn't have picked up the second design. YES, I know how very cover-slut of me! I'm just stating the honest truth. I don't know why the decision was made to change the design. But personally I think it was the wrong one.



Soul of Vengeance has aspects that I really enjoyed and aspects that were not so good in my opinion. Sadly while I enjoyed the book, it's my least favorite in the series. So I gave it 3.5 Stars and rounded it up. 

The storyline in the third book felt a bit like a mash-up of the first two. Which is a good thing, I love Epic Fantasy. Except that I found the fantasy bits not quite epic enough. I love the idea of the Soulbearer, the world building had been already really well set up in the first two. So I expected more of this one. But frankly it felt more like a paranormal romance this time around. I would have loved for McHugh to somehow delve deeper into the epic fantasy genre than she did this time around. Instead of that McHugh concentrated a bit too much on the romance part for my taste. While it was fun and cute, its a pity because at the end of the book I felt that it was to cutesy. I  felt like it didn't live up to it's potential. I know that partly this was to rap-up things, but actually I felt like things were neglected and rushed in favor of a romantic happy ending.

I enjoyed Arden's time in Lothmore Palace. It was interesting to get to hear the Gravarian Lore and also see a different side Loku. Since the three MCs were rather well established in the first two book, it was interesting to see Arden develop a relationship with her father and learn more about her own magical abilities. Though I found her really childish at times and was a bit bored of her running away  shenanigans.
Loku this time around was actually a bit disappointing and his sudden change in character rather unpleasant. While he was rather mischievous in the first two books, he still seemed to care about Arden. Their relationship was really interesting, I loved their dialogues in the previous books. In this much not so. In fact he was downright horrid and she just kept on shutting him up. I think the whole Soulbearer thing actually came a bit to short in this book.
Still many questions were unanswered for me. Was Loku just playing her that whole time? For what means? He did say that Arden was different from the previous Soulbearers and had special abilities - but it was never explained.  Honestly thinking back this is one of the biggest let downs of the book.
Dev's POV featured the least, which is a pity, since I totally always was on team Dev.  His turn around was never really explained either.
Zara was an interesting new addition. She is a completely different character from Arden and definitely a great addition. Except there was the same doubts that Arden had and her run-away syndrome. Which felt a bit used, since Arden done it x-amount of times over all three books.
Kel probably was the most interesting change and most developed character. It was interesting to see him grow from the ever fancy dandy to a leader and someone with depth. I do have to say, I found the transmission from player to romancer a bit hard to believe. I would have preferred he would have kept some of his player side he had in the first book.

This book seems more about Zara and Kel than about the Soulbearer and her story. And while allot of world building was done in the first two books, I still would have loved to see more in this one. I feel I know barely anything about the Thallians even though there was a battle involving them.
I think I would have been fine with the world building as is, if it would have been more of a character driven story this time. Which it wasn't. The character building wasn't strong enough for that either. In fact the book was mostly romance driven.

I really enjoy the way the series were written and I like the characters, found the world building interesting and most of all love the Soulbearer idea.  After finishing this book, I actually wondered if there will be another one. Because many questions were left open. In fact it felt more like a spin-off novel to the Soulbearer series.  And the ending? While I have to admit, I did have a goofy grin on my face, when I read it. Then my reaction was; hang on? That's it? It was way to cute and fluffy for me and it left me with a feeling that things were unfinished.

A good series, but it could have been great.  Sadly the last book is my least favorite.  Great ideas and good writing mean I'll definitely will look out for the next book McHugh writes .

ARC was provided by Publishers through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

rebecca_3's review

4.0

This review can also be found on my blog: A Match Made in Heaven

This was Kell's story. The first two books had a pretty even split of the POV between the 3 protagonists. But in this one, I could probably count the number of Arden or Dev POVs on both hands. Its almost entirely Kell and Zara. But we still follow Arden and Dev's progress through their occasion chapters and also through Kell who has contact with them.

I will admit, this book finally made me appreciate Kell. He just needed to get out on his own and develop more as a character, instead of just the third wheel to Dev and Arden. He and Zara are perfect for each other. At first I had trouble believing that Kell would get over Arden so quickly. But eventually I saw the difference between the relationship he has with Zara, and the relationship he had with Arden. They are much better matched. And Zara is even more kick-ass than Arden! I do like her better. She knows what she wants and she goes for it. If Arden was more like Zara, the Arden-Dev relationship woes would have been solved long time ago.

That being said, I still would have enjoyed this book more if it had been focused on Dev and Arden like the first two. Dev is the highlight of this series for me. And the mention of another soul? WTF? How is that possible. Way to leave us hanging! And we will never know for sure since its just a trilogy. Oh well, I can assume the best! I was also surprised that there was no resolution in regards to

Spoiler

Loku. I expected something to change. But I guess she will just have to live with him for the rest of her life. She is clearly not going mad. They never really explain it but I would assume it has something to do with her Elf heritage

.

But in the end there are warm and fuzzies all around. A perfect ending, which I guess was amplified by the fact that I finally appreciated Kell. So maybe the redistributed POVs had a purpose after all. Four wonderful people who really deserved their HEAs.

talknerdybookblog's review

4.0

I just felt like this book was too much about Kell and Zara … I get it, the author wanted Kell to get his HEA but I felt that should have been done through a novella. I really just wished to have read/focused on Trouble’s story … with Dev and I ended up skipping a lot of chapters because they were in Kell or Zara’s POV and I just didn’t care enough about them to read it. From the beginning, I wanted to read and learn and know about Trouble’s life (with Chaos and Dev of course) … so this was disappointing. However, of the time that I got to be in Trouble or Dev’s POV, it was great!! Love them :)

madscibrarian's review

4.0

I suppose this book is just as predictable as the previous two, but still enjoyable nonetheless. After Arden's rejection of Kell in the previous book, it was obvious that another love interest for Prince Kell needed to be introduced-- Zara, the younger sister of his best friend Bynn. Zara is actually a really resourceful character, as she plays a major role in helping the rebellion against the Thallian invaders that took over Ranello. I think she actually displays a more likable character than Arden, as Arden really isn't the main focus of the book anymore.

I think this final book was a little less exciting on the action part of the plot. The rebellion causes some good events, but as there is a lot of discussion over how to overtake the Thallian army, I think I liked the previous plot better. Arden's side of the story does have some scary moments with Loku taking over though, and her efforts to try and control him were more action packed than previous books.

I do think this book needed a little bit more closure on Arden's relationship with her father. The reader gets some of that, but I don't think it was fully developed at the end, nor was it implied that she would continue to develop a relationship with her father.

The romance aspect of the book was probably the best out of the three. There are some tender moments between Kell and his new love interest, and we finally get to see how things work out between Arden and Dev.

Overall, I think I liked the first book of the trilogy the best, with this one as a second, but the 2nd book of the trilogy had the best plot line. I think it is worth reading as a quick read for fantasy romance enjoyers.