Book 3 of the Kricket Series
Kyon Ensin finally has what he’s always wanted: possession of Kricket Hollowell, the priestess who foresees the future. Together, their combined power will be unrivaled. Kricket, however, doesn’t crave the crown of Ethar—she has an unbreakable desire to live life on her own terms, a life that she desperately wants to share with her love, Trey Allairis.
As conspiracies rage in the war for Ethar, Kricket’s so-called allies want to use her as a spy. Even those held closest cannot be trusted—including Astrid, her sister, and Giffen, a member of a mysterious order with a hidden agenda. But Kricket’s resolve will not allow her to be used as anyone’s pawn, even as the Brotherhood sharpens its plans to cut out her heart.
As the destiny prophesied by her mother approaches, Kricket will backtrack through her fiery future to reshape it. For she knows one thing above all else: the only person she can truly count on is herself.
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I received this e-ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
That being said, it makes me really sad to give this book such a low rating - 2.5-3/5 stars. Why you may ask?
Throughout the whole book, I was seriously confused and had absolutely no idea what was going on. Really. I feel like Kricket is jumping back and forth between Kyon and Trey, and I have absolutely no idea what to think. You know how usually when you read a book with two male main characters competing for one female character's attention, you will have an obvious favourite right?
Usually, at the back of the mind you already know who you want the female character to end up with.But no, not in this series. For the first two books of the series, I really wanted Kricket to end up with Trey and I was so sure she was going to end up with him, until I read Darken The Stars, and BAM now I'm in an absolute mess and I've no idea what to think.
So basically this series starts of with this girl named Kricket, who is actually from this planet called Ethar but her parents brought her to Earth to protect her but they've supposedly died, leaving her an orphan. One day, she meets Trey and his group of military guys (their called Cavars in the book) and they end up kidnapping her to bring her back to Ethar to face her crimes because her mother was from Almeeda and ran away with Kricket's father, who was from Rafe. Now let me explain about the houses of Ethar: Ethar is split up into several houses, the main ones being Almeeda and Rafe. They're not just any two houses, no they're sworn enemies.
Anyway, so there's a prophecy that one house will fall and one will rule all, blah blah blah (you know, the usual.)So anyway, Trey brings Kricket back to Ethar and of course, they fall in love despite all the complications they face. One of them being Kyon.And this is where it gets complicated. So Kyon is from the other house, Almeeda and wants to bring Kricket to Almeeda because she has gifts- she's a soothsayer, and later in discovers that she has the gift of precognition as well. And that's not all! Kyon also wants to make her his consort, and yes, it's as creepy as it sounds.
OKAY, so now that I've given you guys the background information to the story, especially for those of you who haven't read the first book, let me get down to the actual review of Darken The Stars.My first thoughts when I finished the book: it wasn't terrible, though the plot was as confusing as anything. The thing that I had the most problem with was Kricket's 'love life', we could call it.
She keeps jumping from one guy from another and it's really confusing me.I get that she doesn't know who to choose and all, but she does rash things in the book without any explanation that makes absolutely no sense to me.Darken The Stars starts off with how Kricket was captured by Kyon, and he brings her to his island-resort thing so they can have private time and get to know each other.
She tries not to fall in love with him, as she loves Trey (or at least that's what we thought) but inevitably, she falls in love with him and becomes his consort, EVEN THOUGH she's promised herself to Trey and even though she and Trey didn't have the ceremony, they were as good as married.
But no, Kricket ends up SLEEPING with Kyon and falls in love with him, and later on when she meets up with Trey (because she's on this undercover mission to assassinate Kyon's father but that point is irrelevant at the moment) she asks him of one things in case she doesn't make it, and I quote:
"PROMISE ME YOU'll PROTECT KYON AFTER I KILL EXCELSIOR"
I mean, come on woman for the love of dear god why would you say that to him? I was practically screaming "You love Trey god-dammit woman what's wrong with you!" the whole time and came very close to wanting to bang my head against my laptop screen.
Kricket was basically transformed from a very likable main character to this whiny, indecisive girl that quite frankly really irritated me. And what's more important - Amy took away one of the parts i love the most about the book - the Cavars: Trey, Jax and Wayra.
Their interactions and conversations with each other and Kricket was one of the things I loved the most about the first two books, and yet they barely appeared in this third book even though I'm pretty sure they play a major part in the story!
I can only pray and hope that this is not the last book, because if it is I swear I'm going to become a monk and run away to the far far east because I'll never be able to face life again if this book doesn't have a fourth instalment.
