~*~* VERY SPOILER REVIEW ~*~*

3.75 stars rounded up

Kavon, Darren, and the FBI Talent Team is back. For the most part, I loved this book, but it wasn't a solid 4-stars read for me because of of a couple of reasons. Let me write down why I loved from this third installment of Gala's Aberrant Magic first.

I loved that Kavon and Darren were solid, both as couple and as partners. They seemed to have their working rhythm perfectly.

Kavon is the more stubborn, more demanding of the two. Sometimes his stubbornness frustrated the hell out of me. He seems unwilling to work with others. Kavon's principals are sometimes too rigid, even if it helps in situation where someone must shows authority and gets things done. In the meantime, Darren is the one that smooths everything else. When the situation needs a little negotiation or sympathy, Darren is your man. He can easily befriends others too. So this is a power couple that compliment each other.

And then there is Bennu. OMG how this bird rocks. I loved Bennu so much. I loved how he wants to help with the case, but still respects Kavon's order despite him being the more powerful ifrit compared to Kavon's bull. Bennu kicks ass. I couldn't get enough of him, honestly.

I also liked the new members of the Talent team ... Agent Ahtisham Boyd and Salma al-Ghamdi. I thought Lyn Gala included diversity here without feeling like she was trying too much, you know? We have black agent, devout Muslim agent, not-so-devout Muslim agent ... well, you get my point. Oh, and I liked how they finally got their feet back together after being shocked when they discovered a traitor within their team.

What stop this from being solid 4-stars are these:

For the past two books, O'Brien was the major villain. He tortured Kavon. He was the mastermind. O'Brien was able to slick his way out of capture. But when it came to the resolution of his story, I wasn't completely satisfied. Because instead of facing O'Brien face-to-face, Kavon and Darren fought him on spirit plane. Where Bennu obliterated O'Brien's stonefish spirit guide, which resulted him dying in the real world.

For me, that wasn't enough. Call me blood thirsty, but fighting spirit guide, and put a bullet in O'Brien's head in real life was not the same. I guess I want Kavon and Darren to face this man in real life, face-to-face, not spirit guide vs. spirit guide. I felt like I was robbed the satisfaction of reading O'Brien dead (rather than his spirit guide)

Also, the O'Brien arc ended around half-way of this book. Then it was switched into the human trafficking case, which had been in the background previously. I felt like Lyn Gala was introducing new arc and new couple (yep, we had new potential power couple, as Bennu's ifrit friend -- a hummingbird with anger-management issues (LOL) -- made an appearance and ready to become a spirit guide for another agent.

Does this mean the story will continue with a different couple, town, and team altogether? With new spirit guides as well? This feels like an open ending, and if there isn't any continuation, what is the point of this introduction?

Kavon and Darren believe they finally have the life they want--a lead on O’Brien, a better understanding of the failures that have plagued the team, and time to nurture the bond between them as shamans and lovers. However they’ve gotten involved in magical politics, and that has consequences that neither of them could foresee. Magic is changing, and Kavon and Darren are in the center of a coming storm. In the past, Kavon’s only fear was that he might inadvertently damage Darren, and he is painfully aware that he has hurt his lover before. He’s vowed to never make that mistake again, but new forces threaten their relationship and pose a special threat to Darren. With the danger growing more intense, Kavon struggles to find a way to protect the ones he loves and Darren realizes that the magic that gave him his heart’s desire could take everything away just as quickly. Magic is a double-edged sword and the two lovers have to find a way to wield the weapon before it becomes the instrument of their death.

SOME POSSIBLE SPOILERS FROM THE PREVIOUS BOOKS IN THE REVIEW, BEWARE.

Review,

Dear Lyn Gala.

I once again one clicked this book when my friend Raine told me it was out. We are catching up with Kavon, Daren and the rest of the team when they are once again trying to catch the murderous shaman O’Brien who was such a pain in their collective behinds (but especially Kavon’s and Darren’s) in the first two books. Well, to be precise he did the most of his visible damage in book one, in book two the team faced some eh “colleagues” of his and we were not actually shown much of the hunt for him, just told about it.

Now Kavon learns that Canada law enforcement lost O’Brien but in order to get involved he needs to get political again and that’s not something Kavon likes (or so he claims). We have delicate relationships between FBI teams in the same offices apparently, add to this a different country, throw some delicate power struggles between shamans in different areas of the world who may prefer Egypt to Vatican (very significant centers of magical and religious activity in this world) or none of the above, and you get some explosive mix. And of course our guys and the rest of the team is right in the middle of all of this.

Of course whether Kavon and Darren liked politics or not, they gotten to be a bit more skilled in it and off to Canada they go to try and catch O’Brien.

 

“Oh? Boucher went to White. When that didn’t work, you went to McLean. And then Boucher goes all nuclear and insults Hassan. These are three people I have made it my life’s mission to never speak to. Never.” Les pronounced the word so it had three syllables just to emphasize his point. “You two are fine with politics; you just hate losing.”

 

I will let you to guess on your own whether the main criminal Bad in the story which is romance as much as an adventure gets what was coming to him. I thought the resolution of this particular storyline was okay – nothing was left hanging, but also there was nothing really surprising added to the “mystery”. I put  “mystery” in quotes because in the previous two books I was not really happy with how reveals of the villains played out, I mean I was fine with the action, I just did not think it was really mysterious, but now I think it did not really meant to be. As I said, nothing really surprising was added to that.

However, what I really liked is how the action was used to show the characters learn and grow and show us some angles of their personalities we may not have noticed yet. I am talking about all the interactions between the members of the team. They are still reeling from the consequences of the betrayal in the second book, and while nobody gets out of jail free card in that department – everybody deals with their guilt differently and no, we don’t spend a lot of page space on it, but it is impossible not to notice. Then we get new team members and Darren and everybody else interacting with them and Darren specifically figuring out how he was messing up in book one and acknowledging and moving on. It was just nice to see adult interaction I could relate to – not to all the action, but to the complexities of human communication I guess. As an aside I really liked the fact that “team looking stupid” was addressed head on and I liked that it was okay and this will pass too. Really liked how all of this was handled.

 

“When Coretta lined all the facts up like that, it made the Talent team seem incompetent. Okay, it made them all seem like absolute morons who couldn’t see a criminal coming from fifty yards. Since he didn’t have anything to say, an awkward silence fell, and Darren was left watching tourists check out at the front desk. When his phone vibrated, he told Coretta, “They’re five minutes out in a taxi.”

 

I may have to correct myself – I stated above that there was nothing surprising in the resolution of “let’s catch the murderer shaman” storyline. There was something I did not expect. It was over at about fifty percent of the book. I was genuinely taken aback for a second, because you have to understand – this was main action arc for two and a half books and to have it be over in the middle naturally begged the question as to what would happen next.

Then I learned the reason for human trafficking case to be shown in the background several times – the team now threw the full efforts of everybody in that department and for the investigation related reasons the team gets on the plane again and flies to Texas.  While all of this happening Darren decides that he needs to try and take him being a Shaman (with Bennu I mean) more seriously and try and figure out why Bennu chose him.

Have I mentioned that Bennu still rocked and kicked ass? Well he did. And we learn stuff and meet a hummingbird with anger management issues.

Let’s talk about learning more stuff now. I don’t know whether this was supposed to have the door open for more books in the series, but if not, then the story shared with us a major danger coming to this world pretty soon. And then it stopped. I am sorry, what?

I still loved it, and most of what I wanted to know was answered and the guys were solid and female team members were even more awesome in this book, but if no more books are coming, I am at loss as to why this new information was given to the readers.

Grade: B/B+

This second part of the Seekers continues the adventure on Arethusa where the native people are undergoing a Change into apparently irrational, furious beings with telepathic and telekinetic abilities, and wreak havoc on the Sagittarius and and Klingon Ship which investigate the situation and try to capture one of those Changed, in the case of the Klingons, to harness their powers.

 

The plot itself revolves around containing the Changed and preventing them from gaining access to a starship, helping the stranded Sagittarius and finding a way to remove the mindless fury that makes the Change so dangerous. All the while Captain Khatami of the Endeavour has to reason with the captain of the second Klingon vessel, Kang, to cooperate and defend against the automatic measures the Preserver oblisk employs itself against the Changed which leave part of the planet petrified, communication with the landing teams damaged and the ships in orbit incapable of rendering sufficient help.

 

The Endeavour's science officer Klisiewicz discovers the past dealings of the Tomol with the Shedai and the Preservers - and with illegally obtained data from Operation Vanguard (all research into the Shedai, Vanguard, the metagenome etc. was sealed after the destruction of the station) is able to draw the correct conclusions and to lead Dr Leone in the right direction in devising a "cure" for the Tomol Change. But is it soon enough to save them and their planet?

 

I enjoyed Point of Divergence quite a bit more than the first part, it's more complex, less interspersed with those flippant remarks that are meant to be funny and relieve tension but just come across as annoying. And I have to say that I just like the crew of the Endeavour more than the eclectic bunch of tech-prodigies of the Sagittarius. They simply come across as more earnest and realistic, in short, more three-dimensional instead of as caricatures. And I have to admit considering to skip the Sagittarius-parts of the Seekers-series in the future since, apparently, it's planned to keep the crews separated in the future. So one shouldn't miss out on too much not reading every second novel...

 

So, the personal side to the story is a definitive advantage of this novel, as is the more intense feeling of a race against time. The Klingon threat was resolved a bit too rapidly. Mind you, I like them working together, but it felt a bit too fast that Kang conceded to Khatami's request of a temporary alliance. This removed one layer of the plot too fast. Another thing is the future involvement of Starfleet on Arethusa. In the final chapter it's stated that Arethusa applied for protectorate status in exchange for granting scientists access to the Preservers' oblisk... but a couple of paragraphs later Khatami's wondering if and when Starfleet will be invited back to the planet. Isn't that a bit of a contradiction?

 

I hope that future parts of the Seekers-series will focus on science, as these sequences were the strongest in this book - there's still so much to explore in the Taurus Reach, so much to discover about the Shedai, the Tkon, apparently the Preservers etc. I definitely don't need battle sequences in every part, or confrontations with the Klingons for that matter. There's been enough of that in Vanguard or this opening duology. Overall, Point of Divergence certainly whetted my appetite for more adventures in the Taurus Reach - at least more adventures featuring the Endeavour. I'll reserve judgment on the Sagittarius part of the series.

Going into Pivot Point, I honestly didn’t know what to expect. I hoped that I’d enjoy it -( Kasie West is a local author), and I did end up loving it – I just wasn’t sure of what to expect going into it. It seems that every year there are books that everyone seems to enjoy, and Pivot Point is definitely one of those. The book started of a little slow for me, but slowly I started to become invested in Addie’s story. We’re seeing these two different possible outcomes to her future play out, and you guys. It’s both addicting and infuriating. Come a certain point, you’ll know which future you want her to pick, and from there on you won’t be able to set the book down.

 

Without delving too far into the plot of Pivot Point, I can say without a doubt that the way Kasie West told Addie’s story was incredible.  The book follows Addie as she uses her ability to look six weeks into two possible versions of her future. The way it’s told is weird, and I mean that in the best possible way. Each chapter alternates between the two different futures, and I think that this way of telling the story could have very easily gone wrong, but thankfully it didn’t. It was actually really interesting because with both possible paths – you were able to see how closely they were linked. As the story progresses, little events start to match up, and I was literally pointing everything out and muttering to myself things like “this makes sense now” – it was great.

 

One of my favorite things about Pivot Point was the world that the characters lived in. This book is one of those rare ones where it’s a science fiction/paranormal type story that reads like a contemporary. However, as much as I loved the world building and how unique it was, I still have a ton on questions that I’m hoping will be answered in the sequel. Throughout the book there are little things here and there mentioned, but not entirely explained. I could definitely do for a bit of background history on “The Compound” and why only a select group of people have the mind abilities mentioned throughout the book.

 

Holy freaking romance! I loved the romantic element in this book so hard. Seriously. Throughout the entire book we’re seeing these two different scenarios for how Addie’s life may end up, and you’ll literally be feeling all of the feels. For awhile I was loving both guys – I was quoting Hannah Montana and telling myself that it’s the “best of both worlds” and that I’d be happy with whatever life she ended up choosing. But somewhere along the way, I found myself rooting for one guy more so than the other, and then a certain event made up my mind. Not that the guy is the deciding factor for which path she ends up choosing, because it isn’t. There is so much more to the story than the romance, but it was definitely a good one that I enjoyed.

 

Overall, Pivot Point is a book that anyone who is a fan of the paranormal/sci-fi genre should read. It’s definitely one of the books that I consider a must read of 2013, and think that fans of both the contemporary and paranormal sci-fi genre will enjoy. The book also leaves off on one those endings that isn’t a cliffhanger, but leaves you with enough questions that you’re dying for the next book.

Canes of Divergence - Breeana Puttroff I know I say this every time I read a book in the Dusk Gate Chronicles but I freaking LOVE this series! I love all the characters, I love the world that the author Breeana Puttroff has created, and I love watching the journey that everyone takes.I actually consider this a bit of a spin off from the original Dusk Gate Chronicles as it focus's on Zander then on Quinn or William. I was TOTALLY OK with this! It was obvious throughout the 4 books that proceed Cains of Divergence that Zander had a story to tell, and I am so glad that Breeana was able to finally tell it.Zander is so cute, I liked getting into his head a little and understanding what he thought about the whole Quinn fiasco... he obviously had deep feelings for her, and although I never liked him dating Quinn... he just always seemed to be a bit of a misfit and I always hoped that he would finally realize that something was going on and discover Quinn's new world.As I said, this book does not really focus on Quinn and William... however everyone is extremely involved. I Still think William may be the sweetest character I have ever read, and Thomas is still in his (understandable) funk from his ordeal in a previous book. Lydia is honestly such an awesome friend and sister.I really want to say more... but I can't without totally giving everything away. I can however tell you that this book does NOT disappoint. It is just as well written as the previous books, and the story is able to draw you in and hold you captive until you are on the last page and in shock over what just happened... trust me its HUGE!If you are looking for a good YA Fantasy this is definitely a book I would recommend. It probably can read as a standalone because I think it is more a spin off then an actual 5th book in a series... however I would recommend reading the first books if you haven't already because, well... they are awesome!