Hey all. I'm... sort of back. Got hit with a chronic medical thing back in October and just now got back to the point where I can (very slowly) read books again. I know there were some reviews I wrote before that, but didn't post. No idea where they are, but I can for sure let you know that I LOVED both Dust and Light and Grotesque, and was surprised to see them un-reviewed.
Well, we'll see how often I can read and post, but I'll try to be back. And now on to the review!
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When you get to the final book of any series, there’s always a bit of a fear – is this ending going to live up to the expectations that I’ve built up based on the previous books in this series? You’ve invested a lot of time and emotion in the characters and you want something that at least gives some feeling of satisfaction and completeness, preferably while giving a sense of grander scale than previous installments.
And I feel confident in saying the third book in Joshua Roots’ Shifter series, “Paranormal Chaos,” managed to live up to nearly all my expectations, raise the scale to glorious heights and answer all the major questions while still leaving the future wide open for Marcus, Steve, Quinn and the rest.
In the interests of disclosure, I do know Mr. Roots from an online community, so you may take this review as you like. But I really, really enjoyed it. J
In this installment, Marcus has been tasked with a job he doesn’t really relish – going to talk to the minotaurs because they’ve decided they want to withdraw from a major treaty with the skilled and normal. Luckily, he just happens to have a best friend who’s a minotaur. But maybe that turns out not to be as good a thing as he hoped.
This book gives more information on this world’s minotaurs – a race not well fleshed out in most of the urban fantasy I’ve read, and so welcome for that alone – and on the interactions between the various races, as well as some of the history of the skilled. It also gives a glimpse of what outsiders think of the skilled – an interesting perspective since most of the focus of the first two books has been close-cropped on the world of the skilled.
There’s character development, exciting action, vast world-changing decisions… just a wonderful third book in a series that’s delivered a lot of enjoyment. A star of the book is really the glorious bromance between Steve and Marcus. Anyone who knows me knows the quickest way to my literary heart is by making the central relationship non-romantic but still powerful and emotional and deep. It’s accomplished perfectly here – when these two use the word brother, it feels like they truly mean it, and have truly earned it in the text.
Now, at the beginning, I did say this book lived up to “nearly all” my expectations. If you follow my reviews with any regularity, you may also know I tend to pick bad favorite characters – ones who never really end up in the spotlight. And it happens again here – both of my favorite characters are off-page for the vast majority of the book. One is barely in at all. Boo :( But there’s only so upset I can be, because I can’t see how that could have been changed without ruining the balance of the rest of the book. C’est la vie.
I don’t think this book would require the earlier books to be understood, but if you’re considering this, I really do recommend all three. It’s a great urban fantasy trilogy.
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