Title: Fate's Edge Series: The Edge #3
Author: Ilona Andrews
Published: November 29, 2011
Genre(s): Romance: Paranormal
Page Count: 372
Rating:
Summary from Goodreads:Audrey Callahan left behind her life in the Edge, and she's determined to stay on the straight and narrow. But when her brother gets into hot water, the former thief takes on one last heist and finds herself matching wits with a jack of all trades...
Kaldar Mar-a gambler, lawyer, thief, and spy-expects his latest assignment tracking down a stolen item to be a piece of cake, until Audrey shows up. But when the item falls into the hands of a lethal criminal, Kaldar realizes that in order to finish the job, he's going to need Audrey's help...
I’m feeling a little tired. Though I would never, under any circumstances, consider The Edge series to be a favorite, the books have always been fairly entertaining. Sadly, Fate’s Edge introduced a whole new level of boring—it was an exhausting slag through a story I didn’t care about in any way. Certainly not the best effort I’ve seen by Ilona Andrews.
So, to say what simply must be said: Ilona Andrews’ writing is not good. It’s inelegant and clumsy, artless, stilted, choppy, and lifeless. Nothing the author has written (that I’ve read) has really impressed me. The most I could say was that The Edge series won me over on the basis of interesting world-building and engaging storylines. That is definitely not the case here. With minimal world-building and a very dull plot, I found that Fate’s Edge offered nothing, and was therefore a waste of my time. The honest truth is that Andrews just doesn’t have talent, and just doesn’t write quality fiction.
There is instalove aplenty in this book. Our main characters, Kaldar and Audrey know each other for like a week and they’re in love and getting married. Honestly. Additionally, neither of their characters were even remotely well-developed. There was a little telling at various points, but really no development to speak of at any point. I couldn’t believe in Kaldar and Audrey as people, and neither could I believe in them as love interests. They were just boring, like the entirety of the book.
The non-romantic aspect of the plot was silly, too. I honestly lost the plot thread about halfway in because I ceased to care. Even though the characters’ lives were on the line, I didn’t feel any urgency, and the plot didn’t move in a way that hooked me. So basically within the first third of Fate’s Edge, I was way more than ready for it all to be over.
Really, it’s not even like I could say this is an outright awful book. It is, however, an outright boring one. I don’t have much to say, since this was just truly uninspiring and dull and ugh. Fate’s Edge, in my opinion, is a complete slog, and it certainly signals the end of my involvement with The Edge series, and possibly with Ilona Andrews. Nothing to write home about here.
