It's been a minute since I've binged an entire trilogy in one sitting. I'm glad it was this one. 

The snark, the complicated scheming, the wit, the war and the love and friendship. It draws you in, and you ride the adventure all the way to one of THE BEST ENDINGS I've ever had the pleasure of reading. 

With so many series having rushed ends or ends that simply fall flat of expectation, the final turn of the page in Warrior Witch, had me feeling nothing but complete comfort and having no regret of immersion in Trollus.

A great series.  

Warrior Witch is the final book in The Malediction Trilogy. With the witch Anushka dead and trolls finally freed, the isle is at war.  Tristan and Cécile, are finally together again after being separated but they have no time to celebrate. They quickly find themselves fighting a war on two fronts and if that were not enough, each of them owe a life debt to the fae.  Somehow, they must find away to stop Tristan's violently insane younger brother from claiming the throne, as they try to stay one step ahead of the fae, who clearly have been playing the long game.

Cécile has been through much since we were first introduced to her in Stolen Songbird. My first complaint with her character was the she turned out to be the typical spunky agent and this still has not changed.  I am well aware that this book YA and therefore a younger protagonist might make mistakes that a more mature one might not but I don't think it's unreasonable to expect some character growth, of which Cécile had absolutely none.  Cécile constantly vacillated between wallowing in self pity due to the consequences of her actions and in turn blaming others and shirking responsibility altogether.  What was perhaps must irritating about Cécile was her absolute refusal to listen to others. The trolls on her side of the war were experienced and trained and time after time, she ignored their advice to do things her own way which inevitably further complicated whatever situation she was trying to extricate herself from.

The thing that bothered me most about Cécile as a spunky agent is that her actions didn't even make sense.  Who exactly decides to sneak into the enemies lair in the middle of the night without bothering to inform friends and family of the risk they are taking? Cécile that's who.  She knew damn well that cooler heads would have forced her to think through her actions and so she ran off instead with a half formed idea.  When called upon her action, Cécile didn't even seem to want to acknowledge that her friends and family were terrified that she had died.  She's almost bitter about having to take her lumps for their rightful anger.

Warrior Witch is filled with action which for me is a bit of a turn off.  I don't enjoy reading battle scene after battle scene and the writing in these portions of the book was far from descriptive enough for me to be drawn in.  Instead, it felt like the action was drawing out the inevitable conclusion of the story.  There just wasn't enough meta holding Warrior Witch together for me, even with the introduction of the fae and an explanation as to how they become trolls and trapped on earth. The introduction of the fae should have added something special to this story and yet, I felt at least the Winter Queen was far too easily defeated to be of much interest.  If that were not enough, solving the mystery of how the Trolls became trapped on earth on the first place occurred in what felt like a blink of the eye. How is it that the Trolls and witches have been trying for centuries to deal with the iron poisoning which trapped the Trolls on earth and Cécile was able to put together a little spell in a New York minute? I understand that Cécile is the super special chosen one but watching her vacillate between an utter wreck and then completely competent threw off the flow of the story.


For all its faults, I read through Warrior Witch rather quickly.  I kept hoping that it would return to the former brilliance of Stolen Songbird, only to be bitterly disappointed.  At least part of the problem is that Tristan and Cécile spent so much time apart and on top of that, for a time, Tristan used magic to shut down his feelings so he wouldn't be tempted to rush to her aid.  This series really needed the banter between Cécile and Tristan to be at its best. I kept reading in spite of what was wrong because I wanted to see how Jensen ended this trilogy.

 

 

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HIDDEN HUNTRESS by Danielle L. Jensen is the second book in the Malediction Trilogy. Cécile has escaped the darkness of Trollus and is beyond the reach of its inhabitants, both good and bad. She has moved to live with her mother in Trianon and has started to fulfil her childhood dreams. However, she misses and worries about her friends in Trollus, so she decides to search for Anushka and find out more about the curse that keeps the trolls trapped.

This is just what I wanted from a follow up book to the fantastic STOLEN SONGBIRD. It was a really engrossing read, and there was a lot going on but I didn’t ever feel overwhelmed. Once I started reading I found that I just devoured chapters almost without realising it. I really liked the way both Cécile and Tristan grew through this book as individuals. I wanted to know what was going to happen next. I will say that I thought Tristan and Cécile were older than they are – I’m not sure why I felt they were early twenties rather than late teens, but I did and when Tristan’s age was mentioned it shocked me – but I can’t say it really added (or took away) anything from the story.

The events of HIDDEN HUNTRESS take place months after the events of STOLEN SONGBIRD, with Cécile ensconced in Trianon under the direction of her mother. As such the plot of the book focuses on the fallout of the events at the end of STOLEN SONGBIRD, with Cécile trying to do what no one has done before and locate the witch Anushka. I thought Jensen handled the search of Anushka and the revelations that involved very well. I found it to be an interesting read, and although I wasn’t surprised I did think Jensen did a great job at keeping the suspense going. I also thought that Jensen handled the events within Trollus brilliantly, and it was an interesting contrast to the search for Anushka.

The blurb may focus on Cécile, but the book itself focuses equally on both Cécile and Tristan with the beginning of each chapter indicating on who it is focusing. The dual first person narrative also worked well for me, as I enjoyed getting to see the different plot threads up close and through different perspectives. I think this really helped to carry the story forward, and to keep me turning the pages.

I thought Cécile was a really compelling character, and I liked the fact that she didn’t hide her emotions. She seemed very grown up, and was very sure of her feelings even when tested. I also thought she was very brave in this chapter, even when faced with difficult choices. I really enjoyed the way Jensen wrote her friendships with Sabine and Chris, they seemed really close. Tristan seemed less remote than he did in STOLEN SONGBIRD, and as such I felt it was a lot easier to empathise with him. There were a lot of secondary characters in this book, both familiar and note, and I think on the whole Jensen did a good job making them believable.

Overall I think HIDDEN HUNTRESS is a brilliant addition to the Malediction Trilogy; it is a really strong second book, and it pulls the story to new dramatic heights, leading me to be looking forward to the final book. If you have enjoyed the previous book then I highly recommend that you continue on the series with this book.

 

Originally posted on TheFlutterbyRoom.

I started these 2 books in October, and found myself prodding along slowly with both. First Shatter Me, then when that was dragging, I then started Hidden Huntress which I got about 75% through, but it was still slow going and draggy. Finally I just decided to give up and DNF both.

 

Don't know what it was, maybe a bad month,maybe they just caught me at a bad time, maybe because they just did not grab me from the start ...either way...life is too short and I have to many book to read on my TBR pile. So I am done. I used to always finish book...just to be complete. Now I'm like...why? It's like staying in a bad relationship for kids. So..no more. I'm sad about Hidden Huntress though, because I LOVED the first book. But the second just didn't have the same appeal and the characters just did not grab me like they did before.

 

Maybe one day I will re-read and get a chance to give real review. 

This is a story about trolls.



No, not those kind of trolls! It's also not the, "I'm going to eat you for dinner" kind of troll either. Picture a more human-like and friendly looking group of trolls (although some are vicious).


I can't rant and rave enough about the first book in this series. It's one of my favs. I'm going to be honest though, I think this book is going to piss some people off. It even kind of pissed me off. This book was completely different. The situations and characters (behavior) were very different. My favorite characters weren't even around each other for most of the book. I HATE that. Nothing is more obnoxious. Consistency is key for me and I felt like this story wasn't consistent with what I read in the previous book.

So, the story turned dark and things (characters) got a little weird. There were times when I just wanted to give up because this was not the greatness that I remembered from book one. Things just seemed to drag on and I even found myself speed reading. I felt like this part of the story could've been told in half of the book or less. It was the characters that I found the most maddening though.

But...once I got to the end, I understood where the author was taking the story. All of this was a setup to what I think will be an incredibly epic third book. Things are about to get crazy and I CAN"T WAIT!