Ever the Brave by Erin Summerill

1/8/2018

SYNOPSIS

After saving King Aodren with her newfound Channeler powers, Britta only wants to live a peaceful life in her childhood home. Unfortunately, saving the King has created a tether between them she cannot sever, no matter how much she'd like to, and now he's insisting on making her a noble lady. And there are those who want to use Britta's power for evil designs.

If Britta cannot find a way to harness her new magical ability, her life-as well as her country-may be lost. The stakes are higher than ever in the sequel to Ever the Hunted, as Britta struggles to protect her kingdom and her heart.

Synopsis from Chapters.Indigo.ca

PERSONAL REVIEW

I recently read Ever the Hunted and was not a fan (as you can tell from my review here), but I don't like leaving a series unread and I felt like I owed the books a chance to redeem themselves. While I was pleasantly surprised by the ending of this book, overall this series wasn't a winner for me.

What I Thought:

Slight Character Development: We saw some slight development in Britta and Cohen this book, with Britta becoming stronger in her resolve and confidence when it comes to Cohen and Cohen starting to figure out how to love Britta, even if it means without him around. We also had a lot more POVs in this book, with Britta, Cohen and Aodren all getting POV opportunities throughout the book.

However, I thought the characters completely fell flat. Aodren just seems super whiny throughout the book; he's clearly just there to act as a comparison to Cohen's jealousy and overbearing ways, but I feel like he was just dropped in on us, so his relationship with Britta seems very forced. I'm sure he'll be a good (and bland) king, but he was a very boring love interest. And while Cohen's POV make us appreciate just how much he loves Britta, he is constantly showing us how little he trusts her to protect herself. Britta had some growth (less always talking about Cohen; more actually trying to figure out her power), but even she spent most of this book jumping between thoughts about Aodren and Cohen when there were so many bigger things she should have been stressing over.

The only redeeming action for this love triangle is at the end when Cohen takes care of Britta's cottage in an attempt to make sure that everything she loves is cared for, even if he can't be the one loving her. Britta acknowledges that while Cohen is a jealous man, she's ok with that because she accepts him as he his. I do like that they ended up together, but man was it boring getting to this point.
Boring Villains: Just like when we find out that Enat is Britta's grandmother, finding out Phelia is Britta's mother happens quickly and with little fanfare, which makes the information fall flat. I found that both villains (Lord Jamis and Phelia) were incredibly boring and don't actually seem to play a big role in the book. For such dangerous people, we are given very little information about the things they actually do, so I never really felt like they were all that evil...
There's Almost No Action in the Majority of the Book: It actually killed me that roughly 3/4 of the book was just characters travelling back and forth to find each other! Literally nothing "big" happens until the last few chapters, and by that point, readers will probably be so bored that even the "action" moments fall incredibly flat. The deaths in this book happen quickly and don't really make an impression on us, while characters come and go so quickly that we never really have the chance to care about any of them.

I liked Ever the Brave better than Ever the Hunted, but a big part of that might have been just because I wanted there to be a resolution. We can also be grateful that this wasn't a trilogy because I can only imagine how much wandering would've taken place if we had a whole other book to fill with a plot. I honestly don't know if these books needed to be longer so that Summerhill had more time to develop her characters and storylines, or shorter so that we're not stuck reading about people traveling back and forth across borders that are supposed to be impassable! Either way, the series is done and at least Britta and Cohen are happily together in the end...

FINAL RATING: 3/5