pjonsson's review
4.0
The Belial Series story continues in this, the 5th, book in the series. As the other books it is a enjoyable book well worth reading. I do still miss the explorer atmosphere of the earlier books though. This book is a search-and-destroy-the-bad-guys thriller with a fantasy theme, plain and simple.
Our friends are back and embarks on a quest trying to find the missing children and the plot is pretty much a straightforward one where our friends slowly works themselves towards their goal and the final confrontation. The author throws in some father-teenage-son issues to complicate matters a wee bit. Did not really care too much for that. There is also some of the usual stupid, emotional based, screw-ups by some of the involved characters which I also felt was a bit silly. I think that the author could have invented some better way of driving the later parts of the books story.
Those are relatively minor complaints. On the whole the book is well written and you never really feel like doing a fast-forward. The book does end in what I would qualify as an annoying cliffhanger though. Yes, the story segment that the book covers do have a conclusion (kind of) and that would normally be enough for me to call it a teaser and not a cliffhanger but there are quite a few loose ends left at the end of the book and the last minute revelations and twists are really teasers of atomic proportions. Hello R. D. Brady, the book is good enough that I would have bought the next one even without that ending!
Our friends are back and embarks on a quest trying to find the missing children and the plot is pretty much a straightforward one where our friends slowly works themselves towards their goal and the final confrontation. The author throws in some father-teenage-son issues to complicate matters a wee bit. Did not really care too much for that. There is also some of the usual stupid, emotional based, screw-ups by some of the involved characters which I also felt was a bit silly. I think that the author could have invented some better way of driving the later parts of the books story.
Those are relatively minor complaints. On the whole the book is well written and you never really feel like doing a fast-forward. The book does end in what I would qualify as an annoying cliffhanger though. Yes, the story segment that the book covers do have a conclusion (kind of) and that would normally be enough for me to call it a teaser and not a cliffhanger but there are quite a few loose ends left at the end of the book and the last minute revelations and twists are really teasers of atomic proportions. Hello R. D. Brady, the book is good enough that I would have bought the next one even without that ending!
rachelriva's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.75
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