Title: Reckoning
Series: Fallen Fire: Book Four
Author: Richard Amos
Publisher: Amazon/Kindle Unlimited
Length: 290 Pages
Category: Urban Fantasy
Rating: 4 Stars
At a Glance: Overall, the Fallen Fire series is an entertaining adventure. I fully expected the final battle for Zayn Valentine’s soul to be an epic one, and Richard Amos did not disappoint.
Reviewed By: Lisa
Blurb: And so begins the end…
The fate of the world rests on a knife edge. A new dawn is fast approaching. Dark times wait to unfold. Soon, everything will change.
I’ve lost everything.
Now what? Embrace part of myself by taking the easy path? Fight even with my hope stripped away? Fade into my sorrow? I have to make a choice. The clock has run down.
Time’s up.
Change is a beast in need of feeding, however that plays out…
Review: I fully expected the final battle for Zayn Valentine’s soul to be an epic one, and Richard Amos did not disappoint. He composes tautly choreographed fight scenes in vivid detail that guide readers through all the fantastical elements of this world he created, and he offers up more than a fair share of suspense too, as we wonder, right along with his characters, how many more battles must be fought before they can claim victory in the war against Lucifer and his bid for dominance and dominion.
What I didn’t anticipate from this final chapter in the journey was the deep sense of poignancy Amos delivered at the end of Reckoning. Of course, there are losses—an inexhaustible and incalculable cost of war—but one death, in particular, hit me a bit harder than I expected it to, and the scene between Zayn and that character brought home its steep and terrible price, so compliments to the author for this emotional connection to the story. All things being considered, this is certainly not a one-note adventure.
The way Amos managed the various points of view this story is told from is also noteworthy, with all the threads and machinations and strategies that had to be pulled together to make a cohesive narrative. We’re in the heads of three separate characters in Reckoning, but two of those characters each happen to have two souls riding in one body—Zayn/Uriel and Scott/Raphael—which offers readers some additional emotional back-and-forth, especially between Zayn and Uriel as they battle for control over Zayn’s body and his consciousness, not to mention his conscience. Lucifer’s pull on Uriel, and Uriel’s allegiance to his mother, the dragon Nuria, imparts its share of trauma on Zayn for Uriel’s multitude of sins in paving the way for Lucifer’s return. Charlie, whose arc took such an unexpected and cliffhanging turn in Revenant, is ever the patient and determined friend who has a few surprises up his sleeve in his fight to save Zayn, and while their relationship takes its fair share of hits along the way, they do ultimately find their way back to each other.
Overall, the Fallen Fire series is an entertaining adventure full of characters from mythology as well as those the author dreamt up (the bug people are truly icky), packed into a slow-burn romance that delivers Zayn and Charlie through the chaos and out the other side, a bit worse for the wear but all the stronger for it.
You can buy Reckoning here:
[zilla_button url=”https://books2read.com/Reckoning-Richard-Amos” style=”black” size=”large” type=”round” target=”_blank”] Amazon/Kindle Unlimited [/zilla_button]