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4.2 AVERAGE
4.2 AVERAGE
medium-paced
Over-the-top action (seriously, at one point a 60-foot-tall monster and a mech destroy a building) and an unconvincing romance. I'm disappointed. Catalina's narrative voice is identical to Nevada's, and her off-page pre-book transformation from shy wallflower to ball-busting Head of House is not very believable.
Catalina has taken over as head of house Baylor and when her friend Runa's mother and sister are murdered she takes on their case. In the midst of her investigation though she keeps running into Alessandro, the one man she's always had a crush on and he keeps killing her witnesses. Alessandro is supposed to be an Italian playboy so this makes no sense to her and she's terrified that she'll accidentally use her magic on her crush and ruin him forever, it's all very angsty.
I'm glad I've finally gotten around to this, I missed these characters and while Nevada had a lot more confidence than Catalina, she has a charm all her own and we still get all the fun family interactions as well.
I'm glad I've finally gotten around to this, I missed these characters and while Nevada had a lot more confidence than Catalina, she has a charm all her own and we still get all the fun family interactions as well.
adventurous
funny
fast-paced
adventurous
challenging
emotional
funny
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
I'm really sad I didn't love this one. It's same same but different to the last triology. And the difference isn't my cup of tea.
Nevada was good with guns and a strong independent woman where Catalina is good with knives but meek, trying to become strong
Mad Rogan is a walking red flag, all powerful, morally grey hotness and Alessandro is a pretty play boy with thousands of Instagram followers and a deep dark secret.
It's hard not to make comparisons when the story is written so similarly in the same world as the last, but just with different characters. I think I'll give this series a break for a bit and maybe come back later. I would like to uncover Alessandros secret. I have no love or hate for Catalina, I just find her character meh.
Nevada was good with guns and a strong independent woman where Catalina is good with knives but meek, trying to become strong
Mad Rogan is a walking red flag, all powerful, morally grey hotness and Alessandro is a pretty play boy with thousands of Instagram followers and a deep dark secret.
It's hard not to make comparisons when the story is written so similarly in the same world as the last, but just with different characters. I think I'll give this series a break for a bit and maybe come back later. I would like to uncover Alessandros secret. I have no love or hate for Catalina, I just find her character meh.
Honestly, it’s like reading diet Rogan and Nevada. Funny, quirky, sweet, and action packed. All the elements of a great book, but too many parallels to Rogan and Nevada with not enough suspense and angst. It is still very much a solid read and tbh anything Ilona Andrews writes is leaps and bounds better than pretty much everything else out there
Okay, so. Firstly, IA are amazing authors, and their books generally sit up on the tippy-top of my favorites list. But I think that this series is just not for me anymore.
It's just a huge departure from the series that I loved in the original trilogy - the characters are younger and more angst-ridden, and I feel like so much of the progress that we've established in character arcs is just erased here at book 4. Another point of clarity on my taste: I rarely enjoy PNR, because changing out lead characters in that world frustrates me. Lots of PNR series, for me, are all about the glimpses that we get of the original main characters, and I never like anyone as much as I liked them. For what it's worth, I even struggled with IA's Edge series in this same way - I enjoyed them, for sure, but I never really got invested, and I was always looking for bits on the original couple. So between the roll to more of a YA pair and the change of leads, lots of this just doesn't work for me.
It also bothered me that this book does a lot to undercut Nevada as a character. I talked about that a bit in my review of Diamond Fire, the novella that transitions to Catalina's lead role. Here, it gets even worse.
That just really, really doesn't sit well with me.
I get her needing a break - and hell, she DESERVES a break. I get her family needling her to step back a little, enjoy her life more, let them carry more of the load. And with Rogan also applying pressure to that end - because he's so overprotective, I can't imagine him letting herself work herself to death without carrying her off like a caveman - I just can't ever see these characters letting things get so out of hand. I get she needed to be separated from House Baylor in order to push this series forward with these characters and not have her be the lead. It just didn't work, for me, for it to be done this way.
That's in addition to my general disbelief that they would let the whole Caesar thing go, as I talked about in my review of the novella. This is their fight, and I don't see the characters we know and love just walking away from it or handing it off to kids trying to run an underfunded, understaffed baby House.
But I'll stop there. I think I've made my feelings on those points more than clear, haha.
I also didn't like Alessandro much, honestly, and I didn't get where this insta-attraction between Catalina and Alessandro came from. They don't know each other. She fawned over his celebrity profiles but never actually interacted with him ... and even before she gets to interact with him much in this book, she's talking about falling in love with him. How? And the same is true on his end - how does he know enough about Catalina to love her? Because if her powers don't work on him - and it seems they don't - then as it has been explained to us, he does in fact love her. And I don't see it. She doesn't know him. He doesn't know her. They both know almost nothing about each other, just crap they've seen in a superficial way, and it seems like his reality is so much more complex than that (as is Catalina's). So it was a weird insta-love that just wasn't believable to me - I kept thinking that maybe he was trapped by her powers, because I couldn't figure out what else had him so captivated (not that she isn't awesome - I do like Catalina! - I'm just saying that he hasn't had the chance to see it). Plus, he was so condescending to her, constantly, and it never made her like him less. He makes some douche comment about dropping her off for coffee while he goes and handles the potentially dangerous meeting in the case, and while she refuses to be sidelined, him saying that about her - him thinking so little of her - doesn't make her think less of him. She just ogles him and continues to fantasize about him in the car on the way to said meeting. **eyeroll**
That said, I liked Catalina more than I thought I would, even if I didn't like her panting over Alessandro despite his constant condescension to her. I also thought she was slow on the uptake with a couple things, but meh.
I liked getting more with Linus Duncan. Even though I was peeved at how quickly both he and Victoria Tremaine lost interest in Nevada and now apparently hold Catalina up as the true successor. Catalina doesn't even have Victoria's abilities. **eyeroll** Also, I can't help but feel like
So that's where I'm at with it. IDK if I'll continue, because even though I liked Catalina more than I thought I would, she still feels a bit Nevada-lite to me, and Alessandro is meh. But I probably will, because I'll want every bit of info I can scrape up about Nevada and Rogan. *sigh*
It's just a huge departure from the series that I loved in the original trilogy - the characters are younger and more angst-ridden, and I feel like so much of the progress that we've established in character arcs is just erased here at book 4. Another point of clarity on my taste: I rarely enjoy PNR, because changing out lead characters in that world frustrates me. Lots of PNR series, for me, are all about the glimpses that we get of the original main characters, and I never like anyone as much as I liked them. For what it's worth, I even struggled with IA's Edge series in this same way - I enjoyed them, for sure, but I never really got invested, and I was always looking for bits on the original couple. So between the roll to more of a YA pair and the change of leads, lots of this just doesn't work for me.
It also bothered me that this book does a lot to undercut Nevada as a character. I talked about that a bit in my review of Diamond Fire, the novella that transitions to Catalina's lead role. Here, it gets even worse.
Spoiler
Basically, Catalina overthrew her as Head of House Baylor, because apparently, doing the job caused her to have a breakdown. This is - to me - so out of character for Nevada that my jaw was on the floor. Nevada has lived her life as The Rock for her family, the one that holds shit together. She did that when - as a child - she stepped in for her dying father and took over the business, supporting her family and keeping them all safe, fed, housed, and sane. And then after the crazy events in her trilogy, and her not having a breakdown, we're to believe that in the aftermath - when the worst was over, she was married to Rogan, and they were dealing with House politics and warfare (something Rogan freaking excels at and so it shouldn't have rattled her even more than the shitstorm from her own books) - she completely fell apart and lost all damn sense, cracking like an egg under the pressure until her family had to force her out of a position of responsibility before she killed herself?That just really, really doesn't sit well with me.
I get her needing a break - and hell, she DESERVES a break. I get her family needling her to step back a little, enjoy her life more, let them carry more of the load. And with Rogan also applying pressure to that end - because he's so overprotective, I can't imagine him letting herself work herself to death without carrying her off like a caveman - I just can't ever see these characters letting things get so out of hand.
That's in addition to my general disbelief that they would let the whole Caesar thing go, as I talked about in my review of the novella. This is their fight, and I don't see the characters we know and love just walking away from it or handing it off to kids trying to run an underfunded, understaffed baby House.
But I'll stop there. I think I've made my feelings on those points more than clear, haha.
I also didn't like Alessandro much, honestly, and I didn't get where this insta-attraction between Catalina and Alessandro came from. They don't know each other. She fawned over his celebrity profiles but never actually interacted with him ... and even before she gets to interact with him much in this book, she's talking about falling in love with him. How? And the same is true on his end - how does he know enough about Catalina to love her? Because if her powers don't work on him - and it seems they don't - then as it has been explained to us, he does in fact love her. And I don't see it. She doesn't know him. He doesn't know her. They both know almost nothing about each other, just crap they've seen in a superficial way, and it seems like his reality is so much more complex than that (as is Catalina's). So it was a weird insta-love that just wasn't believable to me - I kept thinking that maybe he was trapped by her powers, because I couldn't figure out what else had him so captivated (not that she isn't awesome - I do like Catalina! - I'm just saying that he hasn't had the chance to see it). Plus, he was so condescending to her, constantly, and it never made her like him less. He makes some douche comment about dropping her off for coffee while he goes and handles the potentially dangerous meeting in the case, and while she refuses to be sidelined, him saying that about her - him thinking so little of her - doesn't make her think less of him. She just ogles him and continues to fantasize about him in the car on the way to said meeting. **eyeroll**
That said, I liked Catalina more than I thought I would, even if I didn't like her panting over Alessandro despite his constant condescension to her. I also thought she was slow on the uptake with a couple things, but meh.
I liked getting more with Linus Duncan. Even though I was peeved at how quickly both he and Victoria Tremaine lost interest in Nevada and now apparently hold Catalina up as the true successor. Catalina doesn't even have Victoria's abilities. **eyeroll** Also, I can't help but feel like
Spoiler
Catalina getting entangled with the Warden stuff should have been Nevada's plot, given the deal she made to save her grandmother.So that's where I'm at with it. IDK if I'll continue, because even though I liked Catalina more than I thought I would, she still feels a bit Nevada-lite to me, and Alessandro is meh. But I probably will, because I'll want every bit of info I can scrape up about Nevada and Rogan. *sigh*
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body horror, Gore, Gun violence, Violence, Blood, Murder
Moderate: Fire/Fire injury, War, Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Sexual content, Terminal illness, Xenophobia, Vomit, Stalking, Pregnancy
ARC courtesy of Netgalley
Having married off the heroine of the first three books in the Hidden Legacy series, Andrews gives us a new female protagonist: 21-year-old Catalina Baylor, who is slowing starting to gain more control over her powers as a Siren, someone whose magic compels others to love her. Other houses are starting to circle around the house of Baylor, now that its three-year grace period is just about up; as the new head of her house (since older sister Nevada has married and thus become a part of her husband's house), Catalina must negotiate alliances with other houses, as well as manage the family's detective business. A new case that every0one advises her against taking proves the catalyst for her meeting with Alessandro Sagredo, who seems to be only a teen heartthrob and playboy scion of one of the oldest magical families in Italy, but who may in fact be a secret assassin. Or maybe even something more dangerous...
Not a lot of surprises here, just consistent delivery of what has made the Andrews team a perpetual best-seller. Those who have read the previous books in the series, and/or Andrews' Kate Daniels books, will find all the familiar goodness: hero toeing the line between appealingly and alpha-hole-y aggressive; snarky joking between our heterosexual protagonist love interests; family in-jokes and hijinks; non-stop action; supernatural powers pitted against ugly evil; secret agendas galore. There's a bit more emotional angst than in the Rogan/Nevada relationship, which makes it even more appealing to me.
Cliffhanger ending, at least as far as the romance is concerned; will have to wait for book #5 (or perhaps even 6) before seeing how Catalina and Alessandro manage to maneuver their way around the restrictions their families and magical society have placed on their relationship.
Not a lot of surprises here, just consistent delivery of what has made the Andrews team a continual best-seller. Those who have read the previous books in the series, and/or Andrews' Kate Daniels books, will find all the familiar goodness: snarky joking between our heterosexual protagonist love interests; family in-jokes and hijinks; non-stop action; supernatural powers pitted against ugly evil; secret agendas galore.
their way around the prohibitions against their marriage their families and society have put in their way.
Having married off the heroine of the first three books in the Hidden Legacy series, Andrews gives us a new female protagonist: 21-year-old Catalina Baylor, who is slowing starting to gain more control over her powers as a Siren, someone whose magic compels others to love her. Other houses are starting to circle around the house of Baylor, now that its three-year grace period is just about up; as the new head of her house (since older sister Nevada has married and thus become a part of her husband's house), Catalina must negotiate alliances with other houses, as well as manage the family's detective business. A new case that every0one advises her against taking proves the catalyst for her meeting with Alessandro Sagredo, who seems to be only a teen heartthrob and playboy scion of one of the oldest magical families in Italy, but who may in fact be a secret assassin. Or maybe even something more dangerous...
Not a lot of surprises here, just consistent delivery of what has made the Andrews team a perpetual best-seller. Those who have read the previous books in the series, and/or Andrews' Kate Daniels books, will find all the familiar goodness: hero toeing the line between appealingly and alpha-hole-y aggressive; snarky joking between our heterosexual protagonist love interests; family in-jokes and hijinks; non-stop action; supernatural powers pitted against ugly evil; secret agendas galore. There's a bit more emotional angst than in the Rogan/Nevada relationship, which makes it even more appealing to me.
Cliffhanger ending, at least as far as the romance is concerned; will have to wait for book #5 (or perhaps even 6) before seeing how Catalina and Alessandro manage to maneuver their way around the restrictions their families and magical society have placed on their relationship.
Not a lot of surprises here, just consistent delivery of what has made the Andrews team a continual best-seller. Those who have read the previous books in the series, and/or Andrews' Kate Daniels books, will find all the familiar goodness: snarky joking between our heterosexual protagonist love interests; family in-jokes and hijinks; non-stop action; supernatural powers pitted against ugly evil; secret agendas galore.
their way around the prohibitions against their marriage their families and society have put in their way.