Review: Avenger

Goodreads Summary: Sometimes the Truth Comes with a Price.

Nikki knew Damon Vessler would not let his prized creation go easily---she simply never imagined the lengths he'd go to get her back into his clutches, and turn Nikki's heart toward darkness.
A Seeker at her heels, trained on her blood, Nikki flees with Raven alongside her for protection, while Mace and the other Halflings fight the battle that has erupted on earth. But even as the two boys she loves fight for her, she knows the battle will be hers to win. Determined to uncover the secrets of her past, and exactly how she fits into Vessler's twisted plans, Nikki sets off on her own, and soon discovers facing hellacious beasts is nothing compared to the decision she will need to make. One that could change not only the war, and her relationship with Mace and Raven, but her future with the Throne.

I feel like Nikki backpedaled a little in this one. She had made so much progress in the second novel towards becoming the heroine, the Halfling, that she needed to be and she lost a lot of that in between. I was a little annoyed with her character at times in the way that when you watch a horror movie you want to shake the idiot main character who always wants to do the exact wrong thing to do when you're in a horror movie. Nikki had her horror movie heroine moments. But having read the entire novel I think I can see why she needed them to get across the overall motif of the series. Because you do question yourself. You do make progress but you backpedal too.

Religion became a stronger factor in this volume than either of the previous books but Heather Burch handled it in a way that made it not come across too preachy. It was readable and didn't feel as if you were sitting in a sermon. [The worst preachy books always make me feel like a little kid again, dragged to church, listening to an old man drone on while I fidgeted...and you don't get that feeling at all in the Halflings books.] And it was part of the plot, part of the development so it worked within the frame of the novel itself. [AKA it wasn't religion for the sake of religion, it belonged!]

It was just as readable as the first two; you start reading and you just don't want to stop and even when you have to stop you fall back in just as easily every time. Its one of those books that you don't necessarily want to put down but you can if you have to and there is no period of trying to get back into it, you're just there as if you never left. Overall I thought it was a solid novel and a good ending to what I believe to be a trilogy.

3.5 / 5