Another Wonderful E Author

 

Elizabeth Hunter's turn up to the plate


This isn’t so much an eauthor highlight as it is a particular series by an e author.  It’s a three book series written by Elizabeth Hunter that can’t be read as stand-alone books but I can almost guarantee that if you read the first book, you will want to read the other to so you can find out what’s going on.  Warning – if you are a reader who hates spoilers, the first book up should be OK to read, but then skip the next two reviews if you don’t want to know what happens from there on.  I might even play with using the break thingy on Blogspot to hide them.

This author has more books and series though one is a vampire series and since I don’t do vampire series any longer, I never did warm up them as a whole, I don’t know if I will read any of that series or not.  But I will certainly read any of hers that aren’t.

 

OK - can't figure out how to do do a break - so I'll just give a warning

 

 

The Scribe by Elizabeth Hunter

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I've read this book twice now with the intention writing a review and hmmn - neither time I did. So this review is more from memory that usual. Ava Matheson is a very troubled heroine. All her life she has heard voices that no one else hears and they leave her no piece. He mother and step father think she needs help. In order to help with the voices that give her rest as well as an ongoing 'restless' feeling, she lives a pretty isolated and solitary existence. She earns a living traveling around the world as a photographer. She is in Turkey taking pictures when she realizes she is being followed. Her very wealthy step father has done this in the past and she is very angry and decided to turn the tables and confront her 'stalker'. She grudgingly allows him to know that she knows he's tracking her and at different times will interact with him. But when she discovers he does NOT work for her step father, she is really angry.

When she finally agrees to speak to him again, he has quite a story to tell. He is of a different race of people, the Irin, who are descendants of angels. Malachi has been sent to watch over her as she has gained the attention of the Grigori, descendants of fallen angels. Grigori are evil and prey upon humans and it is the Irin duty to protect humans. Malachi is very attracted to Ava and she to him, but because they are different, they are not allowed to touch skin to skin at the risk of what the power Malachi has can do to humans. But touch her he does eventually and through that they discover that she is NOT human. They are not quite sure what she is.

This is a combination RS/Paranormal as Malachi and his people/team work to find out what exactly Ava is and why she is being targeted by the Grigori. This book is lush and vivid in both the description of the localities and the growing love/ tenderness/ need between Ava and Malachi. Elizabeth Hunter is a wonderful writer and you can really “feel” the love between these two, more so than many a book I’ve read. Malachi made such a sacrifice at the end of the book, that I my throat was all closed up and I was in tears. It’s rare that I get that caught up in a book. There is no question that this book gets the highest marks from me.

There is no question this is a 5 out of 5 book.

~**~~**~

 

There are spoilers ahead

 

The Singer by Elizabeth Hunter

My rating: 5 out of 5 stars

I kept meaning to star and review the first book in this amazing series, The Scribe. To that end I recently reread it but that was around the hustle and bustle of the holidays, I still didn’t get around to it. And now that I’m in the GoodReads Challenge, I’m not sure if I go back, it will get counted as part of the 2015 challenge. I most certainly don’t want to cheat and fudge the numbers. When I pass that 60 book mark I set for myself, I want to be honestly earned – she said earnestly.

So until I figure out if that one will spoil the numbers, I’ll stick with the second one in the series for now, The Singer. The Singer starts out almost immediately after The Scribe ends and absolutely cannot be read without reading the first book.
This series of books is a race of people descended from fallen angels. There are the Irin (male) and Irinia (female) who came from angels who after they fell, went back to Heaven. They are the “good” guys. And then there are the Grigori (male) who are descended from angels who stayed fallen and they are the bad guys. They are extraordinarily beautiful and feed on the souls of human women. In the first book, Ave Matheson, our heroine, has been ‘hearing voices’ her whole life. She has been to many doctors, been treated by physiatrists and had to learn to stay away from people in order to stay sane. She meets Malachi, a Irin who tells her she is an Irinia, and a very powerful though untrained one. They form a soul deep connection, to the point where one can barely live without the other.

At this point there be spoilers coming. If you haven’t read The Scribe but are planning on it (and you should) and are not a fan of spoilers – read no further – it’s at your own risk




At the end of the last book, Malachi gave his powers to Ava to save her life and as a result was killed by a Grigori. Ava in inconsolable as she watches him turn to dust and in her overwhelming grief screams a phrase in the old language, “Come back to me Reshon”. Because she is strong and has powers never imagined and not understood, Malachi does come back. But Ava doesn’t know this. He reappears somewhere else and he has no clue as to anything, his name, his powers, where he’s come from, nothing. The only thing he does know is he was called by someone he loves beyond all reason, even though he doesn’t remember her.
Because of her relentless heartache, though heartache doesn’t really begin to explain how she feels, she goes to a retreat run by Irania to get them to help teach her what she is and what she can do.

This brief outline just barely touches on what this book and the one before it, is about. If I only had one work I could use to describe it, it would be longing. Ava and Malachi spend most of the book apart and while Malachi slowly begins to discover who he is and who Ava is and he is desperately trying to reach her. And Ava still thinks Malachi died and has a very difficult time even functioning. At the same time something dark is coming. Ava can sense it but she doesn’t know what it is. On top of that there is the mystery of who she really is. It is the mother’s line that determines if someone is Ir

Ava is in deep, deep mourning over the loss of Malachi, her Reshon, and her fated mate. The author manages to convey the loss one feels and the depth and pain of it brilliantly. I know this from experience in losing my own husband a number of years ago. You think the loss is lessening somewhat and then the least, most unexpected thing happens and it’s new and fresh all over again.

Ava and Malachi spend a good part of this book apart and if this were strictly a romance, it would really bother me. But because this is more than a romance, it’s like a paranormal with a very (very) strong romantic element, it works for me. Both Ava and Malachi are such richly written characters I’m in awe of this Elizabeth Hunter. The secondary characters are also very real. The world building is phenomenal. You can tell I’m impressed can’t you?

This is the second book in the series and as such ends on almost as much a cliffhanger as the previous book. I’m kind of glad I took so long reading this one – it’s been sitting in my TBR pile for a while now – because the time before the next one is much shorter this way. It’s not every ebook that I’m willing to pay whatever they charge, but it doesn’t matter what they do – I NEED to read more about Ava and Malachi and this fascinating world.

~**~~**~

 

There are even more spoilers ahead

The Secret by Elizabeth Hunter

My rating:  4.5 out of 5 Stars

This is a wonderful wrap up to this series. First off, it absolutely can’t be stand alone book. You need to have read the two previous books to understand what’s happening in the third book. I’ll try and give a real quick synopsis on what’s happened so far. In the first book of this trilogy, we are introduced to Ava Matheson. She has been ‘off’ all her life. She hears voices constantly, she can’t relax and it’s best for her if she is somewhat isolated from others. We meet Malachi, a very mysterious man who is keeping an eye on Ava as she travels through Istanbul in her job as a photographer. He is not to make contact with Ava, but she’s one smart cookie and catches him spying on her. Malachi has the power to still the voices she hears and throughout the book, they fall deeply and completely in love with each other. Ava it turns out, is more than she seems and a lot of bad guys; Grigori, children of fallen angels and fallen angels themselves, are after her. At the end of The Singer Malachi gives up his life to save her, an ending that almost physically hurt, in the way it affected me.
In The Singer, Ava has brought Malachi back to life with her incredible powers. But he comes back with no memory except of a woman names Ava. A good deal of the book is spent with Malachi trying to reach this mysterious woman who has called him and with Ava mourning the loss of her Reshon, her mate. Because of the richness of Ms. Hunter writing, we really feel the pain that Ava feels, even though the reader knows that Malachi is trying to find her. He is such a strong hero and he is so lost in this book. Yet he retains his innate strength through out. Their eventual reunion is very poignant but Malachi is not the same man Ava knew before because of all the missing pieces in his memory.
We discover more in the second book, what Ava is and the world building continues. Ava spends a great deal of time in a retreat for the Irina, the female member of the Irin race, learning and working with her powers.
Now we come to The Secret. The story opens with Ava and Malachi spending time with each other, trying to get to know each other in this new reality they are living. Though their love is just as strong and compelling as it ever was, they still need to get to know each other in a more intimate setting. The Irin race spend a lot of time with each other, they are close, and Ava and Malachi need some time with just each other.
There is more world building and things aren’t always as they seem in this, the final book in the story of Ava and Malachi. Pretty much anything I say will be a spoiler and I don’t want to do that so I will say that pretty much all are questions are answered in this book. We find out how and what Ava really is. There is a whole group of people that are very important to the overall story but we haven’t seen them yet until this book.
I’m not giving this one a 5 out of 5 but a 4.5. As the series has gone along Ms Hunter has added more and more characters and I found myself getting a bit lost as to who is who in the secondary characters. I preferred the more streamed down first book in this area for this reason. But I still adore the love story and the connection between Ava and Malachi is off the charts.
The author says after the book that though this was originally planned as a 3 book series and she has pretty much finished the story of Ava and Malachi, she now realizes she’s just barely touched the surface of this world and I so agree. With this new race there are a lot more stories she can tell so I’m glad she is staying in this world she has created

  'til later