Thursday, May 30, 2013

If I Should Die by Amy Plum


If I Should Die is the third and final book in the Revenants trilogy.  I absolutely loved the first two books in the series...Die for Me and Until I Die.  I was captivated by not only the main characters, but many of the secondary characters as well.

Spoiler Alert: If you haven't read Until I Die you will want to skip the next paragraph.

At the end of Until I Die, Vincent was killed and his body was taken by Violette...an evil bardia who is now siding with the numa (bad revenants).  Once Kate and the Paris kindred determine they will not be able to recover his body before it is burned they begin searching for other ways to bring back a volant spirit. 

Throughout If I Should Die we learn a lot more about the history of the bardia and their rituals.  We meet several new bardia from other areas who are just as charismatic as the characters I have come to love throughout the series.  As described in the prophecy, the Champion is revealed and leads the bardia into an all out war against the numa.  This portion of the book was very exciting and action packed.

This is, however, the first book in the series in which I felt like the description of Paris was a little too detailed and the use of French was at times overdone.  I don't need to know that someone is speaking in English, French, or German...just keep the story flowing. 

The first half of the book was exceptional and I probably would have given it five stars up until that point.  I do not want to give away any spoilers, so I will simply say there was a major lull once a certain character left.  I felt like the character was an essential part of the story and was a great way for the reader to obtain additional information from both Vincent and Kate in a very lighthearted and entertaining manner.  Without this character it felt like Kate was forced to give us her thoughts in order to provide the same level of detail, which was very dry in comparison to the alternative.

There were several twists that I did not see coming, but for the most part I was satisfied with how the series came to a close.  It wasn't a picture perfect happily-ever-after for everyone, which gave it a more realistic feel.  I would definitely recommend the Revenants series and I look forward to the release of After The End, which is the first book in Amy's new series.  There isn't an official release date, but Goodreads currently has it listed as 2014.

Here is a picture of Amy and I at the 2013 RT Convention in Kansas City.

2 comments:

  1. I am so sorry that you were somewhat disappointed in this book. I can see where you are coming from and I, too, missed that character once he/she left the story line.

    I still love Vincent. He is the best. I hope that you run into Vincent, Kate & Jules next September when you are in Paris.

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    1. Vincent was great as always and I still enjoyed the story. I think taking the story line from Die for Her out of this series would have greatly improved this final book. Vincent also needed more of the Noah Shaw factor in this book. He became a bit of a push over once the Champion was revealed.

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