Scan barcode
A review by leelah
Betrayals by Kelley Armstrong
4.0
3,5 stars
If you don't like love triangles in your book in general, then I have bad news for you: it's still a predominate theme and I don't think you would enjoy it. But, if you didn't like the way this particular love triangle was written so far in series, I find Betrayals to be much better book than previous was, simply because KA took everything I had problem with concerning the triangle and tried to handle it with more or less success:
1) first thing that left me disappointed in previous book was the fact that love triangle between Olivia, Gabriel and Rick became this, main, uberstory of entire series. Every buildup of every mystery and intrigue up to that point leads to choice Liv has to make between two men. Larsen murders, all the ominous owls and ravens, Trystan meddling... it's all because these three are living embodiment of Matilda, Arwen and Gwynn and Tylwyth Teg (fae of Cainsville) and Cŵn Annwn (the Wild Hunt) are manipulating events for Olivia to choose their champion. I really didn't like this direction because it, in my opinion, constricts main character(s) development. What was the point of reading about evolvement of Olivia's powers from seeing omens to blown-out visions if only for it to mean: oh, she is Matilda (and she has to choose). Same goes for Gabriel and Ricky, who are both, individually, interesting characters and yet, in previous book, they were pigeon-holed into these roles of romantic rivals as their primary roles. This is exactly what Armstrong changed in this book. First of all, we have a parallel plot with Olivia actually using her powers and trying to catch the killer and save lamia fae with Gabriel and Ricky and it doesn't have to do anything with feud between Hunt and Cainsville. A classic mystery subplot, but I mentioned it also because introducing lamiae, different type of fae, Armstrong is finally showing us that this supernatural world she created is more than just Cainsville and love triangle. Olivia has a great power and it was good seeing she is using it to get answers and help someone, not to mention the fact that her visions can be interesting and creepy which is fun to read. Same applies to Ricky and his Cŵn Annwn heritage. More obvious disengaging from triangle and their roles are characters themselves who are making decisions about their lives like they would if situation is different, like they are not living embodiment of old legend. Sure, they know what happened and suppose to happen, but they are not letting that govern their decisions. And, of course, the ending which heavily hints the resolution of this plot (and for the first time, I actually believe it).
2)The biggest complaint, though, I had in previous book, was the fact that because of the way she wrote this love triangle, Armstrong fucked up the best thing (at least for me) about series: dynamic between Olivia and Gabriel. I have to stress out that that my disappointment has nothing to do with the fact that I wanted Gabriel to be romantic interest since I enjoyed reading them being friends or talking/bickering. I just liked them together doing whatever. But suddenly Olivia started misinterpreting his actions and words and basically turned from one person in his life who understood him into a person who doesn't get him at all and I always felt their sudden miscommunication was actually a collateral damage of an attempted justification of love triangle existence. And to be perfectly clear, I don't mind the crisis in their relationship, but I do mind how contrived it read. There are still traces of this at the beginning of Betrayals, like when Olivia doesn't want to call Gabriel to investigate with her because she thinks it would annoy him or when she thinks he is annoyed she used her shirt to help injured person (:exaggeration induced eyeroll:.) Anyway, there are still several scenes like these, but there is great deal of scenes toward the end with Gabriel and Olivia actually talking and discussing and asking each other what they mean instead of making wrong assumptions. This is what I was missing in previous instalment. It's also a great place to mention that it's in this book where Ricky's character really started to shine for me. He was always likeable, but here he becomes fully realized character with a story of his own to tell.
Apart from triangle, Betrayals is fast-paced and keeps you glued to your reader all the way. It has an interesting mystery with predictable outcome (rather, responsible person is predictable); Olivia being injured at least one time too many (seriously, she bounces back too fast considering everything that happened to her in this book); Gabriel who in all his "grumpy crab" self is still successfully staying my favourite even when he's
Looking forward to next book. :)
Dear Kelley, let's break this triangle, please?
