Book Review: Embers & Echoes by Karsten Knight

Title: Embers & Echoes
Author: Karsten Knight
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Release Date: August 28, 2012
Rating: 3/5

Cover Impressions:  Oooooh pretty.  Love these covers.  Not only do they have stunning images and fonts that don't overpower - but they feel super soft and velvety. 

Review:
The first time around, I really enjoyed Wildefire.  But clearly not enough, because when Embers & Echoes was published I bought it - but it sat on my shelf until just now.  I just never felt the desire to read it.  Now, with the impending release of the final book in the trilogy, it was time to crack the spine (but just figuratively - I hate cracked spines.) 

Embers & Echoes opens exactly where Wildefire left off, with the car wreak on the highway and Colt emerging unscathed.  I understood Ash's anger at this point, but really?  You didn't have the least little inkling that in this newly discovered world of gods, your boy toy might just be special as well?  I was very happy to see how she left him and that, despite her being a bit of a boring character, at least she wasn't a pushover.

I really liked that the characters came from a wide range of backgrounds and ethnicities.  It is something you don't see all that often in YA.  However, most of these characters are barely explored and it almost feels like Knight is trying to tick as many boxes as possible, without actually having the page time to flesh them out.  Having her meet up with a new group of gods in this book is interesting and fun, but I do wish there was some more continuity with the characters we had already grown to know.  I will only be happy with this choice if, in the third book, they are all brought together again.  I miss Raja!!!

The whole Four Seasons things was a bit 90s Saturday morning cartoonish.  I simply couldn't take them seriously as a threat because I kept giggling at their name. 

The plot of Embers & Echoes had some real peaks and valleys.  When it was exciting - it was super exciting, but when it was boring oh god was it ever boring.  We see lots of gods get killed (usually ones that we barely know and don't have a great connection to) and some romantic elements that are nothing special.  There isn't a great deal of forward movement between the first book and the third.  I would have liked some character development or some wins on the side of the good guys but, instead, we seem to get a supernatural blood bath without anything of consequence being accomplished. 

I'm still in for the third book.  I am hoping it ties things together and that we bring back some old characters for more than just a page or two.

Teaching/Parental Notes:

Age: 15 and up
Gender: Both
Sex: Kissing
Violence: Death by supernatural means, gunplay, hand to hand combat, kidnapping
Inappropriate Language: Prick, Bitch, Bastard, Shit
Substance Use/Abuse: Underage drinking