Liz Loves Books
I love to read and to talk about books. I review many of the books I read. I do not accept any author/publisher submissions for reviews. I do not read or review ARCs. I do not enter any giveaways or contests. I obtain the books I review by purchasing them at the same price they are offered to the general public at the time of purchase. My reviews are intended for the use of my fellow readers. They are not advertising or promotion. They are not beta reads or constructive criticism or editing or advice to the author. My only obligation to the author is to pay the price charged for the book at the time of purchase. My reviews are sometimes critical and I will not stop posting critical reviews just to spare delicate authors' feelings. I am happy to make new friends, but friend requests from authors or promoters who have few or no books (and/or friends) in common with me and write or promote categories I do not read (especially new adult) will be ignored. I used to read more self-published books. After recent meltdowns by self-published authors, I now only read self-published authors I've previously read or who have been recommended to me by fellow readers I trust. I also used to read young adult/new adult books but rarely do so now.
Blaze of Memory was a lot better than I expected. There's no changling hero or heroine, which I strongly prefer, but I got over that. The plot is fairly strong, the heroine is very likeable and even admirable and Ms. Singh gives us a wealth of information about the institution of silence, as well as some information regarding the Arrows and the Forgotten. There's little focus on either the psy council or the changlings, though both do appear and play a part and some interesting new developments occur. While I can understand why some readers don't care for Dev, I thought he was okay. He's certainly not the best hero in the series and I don't understand the way he handles Katya being left on his doorstep, but by the halfway point, I'd come around to liking him. Actually, I started liking him when they took off for Alaska together and I was fine with him from that point on. I felt like he turned into a different Dev at that point. Oh, and that Sunshine Alaska scene seriously creeped me out! What puzzles me the most is why he allowed a trojan horse into his organization at all after the psys' actions in previous books. I thought they were more openly at war. I know she's an injured woman and he, especially, has a soft spot there, but it still seems bizarre to me that she wasn't kept confined at all times given the situation. I liked Katya a lot. She's one of the strongest heroines in the series in my opinion and she's still very likeable. I thought she was more than a match for Dev. After that midway point, I enjoyed the angsty romance between them a lot. It did feel strange to me to have so little focus on the psy and hte changlings, though. The council meets a time or two and the changlings become marginally involved in Dev and Katya's story, but I still missed their presence and the romance felt sort of isolated to me. Their suspense plot is pretty intense and ... I've been debating whether or not Noor and Keenan's intervention made this a deus ex machina HEA. Noor's interaction with Judd at the beginning and Judd's work with Will later on make it just barely not a deus ex machina HEA for me, but it's a close call. And I'm very puzzled about this new "weaving"/healing ability as it seems one of the kids would have tried it on an injured pet, or a boo boo on someone's knee and been observed doing it. I have trouble buying that it's appeared out of the blue with these 3 people (+Keenan as a conduit) and that all 3 kids kept it quiet for, well ... that's another problem. I can't really tell what the time frame is for this book.The background information on the institution of silence, the Arrow organization, the different gifts the Forgotten have developed and on what's going on with the Net were a nice addition. There may have been a little too much of this information compared to furtherance of the overall series arc, though. It felt like the war was on hold so we could have a history lesson. Even the one Judd & Ghost meeting I can remember was at least partly in the past. I happen to like history lessons, but I can imagine a lot of readers find this distracting.Overall, I enjoyed this book but I am ready to get back to the main story between the psy and the changlings.