"Closing Doors" by Nakeesha J. Seneb
Severed, Book 2 in the Fated series took awhile to warm up, but at the halfway mark it packed a punch.
Evie and Lucas are on the run trying to uncover the prophecy of the White Light. Looking for clues, and for people to help give them clues, slows the story down in the beginning as we are introduced to a new cast of characters. Once we meet the bedpost-notching, rogue hunter, Cyrus, things pick up a bit with Cyrus' larger than life ego and one-liners. He swaggers into the hate-to-love, quick-witted villain role vacated by Shula, though he's on Evie's side. Alderson posted on the interwebs that Cyrus' entry does NOT (thank goodness) indicate a love triangle. Though he does bring tension to Lucas and Evie's love story.
Lucas and Evie spend a lot of inner monologue on the themes of fate, destiny and sacrifice, which was really interesting. But still, I wanted more action. Particularly from Evie. She's set up as this strong female -physically as well as personality-wise. But she only throws a couple of punches in this story. She was very often standing behind Lucas or Cyrus during battles, but there were indications that she could put them both on the floor with her new-found powers.
I was also very excited about the love scene in this decidedly YA work -though maybe it should be cast into the blooming New Adult genre. The love scene is, in fact, there. But don't blink, or you might miss it! Gosh! Does that make me a perv that I wanted to read more about these kids doing the wild thing?
As I indicated, the second half of this book was more to my speed when the action and the ticking-time-bomb shifted into gear. The storyline of this sequel is resolved and then a serious, SERIOUS, complication is immediately introduced for the final book in this planned trilogy. I totally appreciated that Alderson made sure to close one door before opening another. And if you are a fan you will likely shout loud enough for her to hear you in her cottage in Bali with respect to the shape and size of the new door she presented. Like relationships, each book (or movie) in a series has to have Closure. Closure is when the main points of a plot line are sealed together. There really shouldn't be any loose strings. Anything left behind should be on its own line of plot points. I felt that Alderson accomplished this quite nicely with the mission Evie and Lucas had been sent to LA with. With that mission complete, what remained were new plots she'd introduced in the second book that will carry readers into the third.
Personally, I couldn't get past the closing of the initial door. I was unprepared for it. Its completely plausible what happened, but I felt M. Night Shamalyan blindsided by it. Alderson could have put some sneaky hints in there so that when we reflected back on the entire story, we picked up on them and realized what a genius she is. But there were no sneaky hints...at least not that I saw.
Still, I suspect she has something up her sleeve with these two doors opening and closing and some potentially tricky wording in the White Light Prophecy that we think has been resolved. Or has it...dunh dunh dunh!
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