Melissa de la Cruz

This story jumped right into action in the first chapter, with MJ trying to escape capture by insurgents from the fairy realm. Since she has been living in the human world, we are able to experience the wonder of Biringan through MJ's eyes. She only has a matter of weeks to prepare for her coronation, so I enjoyed watching MJ transition from being a normal high school student to the leader of an island nation. This book has a sense of mystery to it, as MJ suspects that her father was actually murdered. It kept me wondering who MJ could and couldn't trust. There's also a bit of romance weaved in, although it's less than I thought there might be. The Encanto's Daughter is the first book in a duology, so I thought it did a good job resolving the issues presented in this book, while leaving a bit of a cliffhanger in the Epilogue to build anticipation for the next book. I enjoyed reading this book and look forward to the story continuing.

Thank you to Penguin Teen and BookishFirst for the free ARC copy of The Encanto's Daughter! All opinions expressed in my review are completely my own.… (mehr)

{My thoughts} – I always seemingly enjoy it when a book series follows in close relation to the previous book. I think that when they pick up right after the previous books have ended that it helps to give the reader the ability to find their place in the story and allows them to be pulled back in. This book did just that. It picked up right where Frozen had left off and it drug the reader right into the heart of an incredible battle between Nat and the RSA. During the battle there was a bunch of POV switching between the chapters, Nat and then Wes and it helped to keep the reader up to current information in regards to both of them as to what had happened since the last book had left off and what was happening in the present time of the book.

While Nat is fighting her battle she is also seeing glimpses of Wes and where he is and what he is doing and he is able to see the same. It throws them both off guard but also gives them relief to know that each of them are alright although they look like they are in some pretty tough situations. They still get to hold onto the hope that they will again see each other. They had promised each other that they would at the end of Frozen. Nat had to stay behind at the Blue to help protect it with her Drakon and Wes went back to New Vegas to try and find his sister, but after everything was said and done they’d said they’d be together and so that’s a hope that they are going to hold onto for as long as they can.

When the current fight ends Nat’s drakon has to go under ground to heal from it’s wounds and that causes Nat and the drakon to be distant to one another. In that time Nat starts to hear voices and she doesn’t know what to make of it. It is one voice in particular and she believes it is her friend. Her friend that was suppose to be safe with Wes. The more she hears the voice the more she wants to run to it where ever it may be. Her teacher Faix is with her and he hears the voice too. Together they set out to try and find where the voice is. They find it on an RSA ship and while they are there they run into Wes. This is a turning point for them both because Nat is forced to see that Wes is working for the RSA again and it confuses her because the last she knew it was against everything he believed in.

The whole time they have been separated Wes had been looking for his sister and Shakes his friend had found out where she was. Wes and Shakes went to try and save her but they were captured and it turned out that they were then forced to work for the RSA to ensure the safety of his sister and their friends.

This whole book then becomes and adventure to finding and saving Wes’s sister and their other friends that had been taken by the RSA. It just takes a bit for Wes to help Nat understand what was happening and why it had to have happened the way that it happened.

There was so much action and so much adventure in this book that it kept me pulled in until the very last page. It made me glad that I had the third book to read already because I don’t think I could have handled waiting for another book to come out. I was honestly very skeptical about starting this book because I had not been impressed with Frozen. This book impressed me beyond measure. It sucked me in from the beginning and it didn’t spit me back out until the very end. I am certain that even if you had your doubts with reading Frozen that this book will change your mind about the series like it had changed mine!… (mehr)

{My thoughts} – Nat is an interesting character. She breaks out of some prison she was being held in against her will in the beginning of the book and then she ends up working as a black jack dealer in a place called New Vegas. She had gotten this far by following a voice in her head. A voice that rarely was quiet and a voice that new what it wanted.

Wes is cocky but kinda on the cute side guy. He knows what he wants and he has moral. He won’t do something that will cause harm to another unless he can’t prevent it, but if he has no choice harm will occur. He also doesn’t like to leave any of his pals behind in danger which makes him a great traveling companion.

{Part One} – Nat figures out that she needs to get to a place called New Crete. When she gets there she should be able to use a map, which she had acquired from her ex-boss Joe to lead her to The Blue. The Blue is rumored to be the perfect place where none of the bad stuff has effected nature and all. She finds a runner to take her and that runner is Wes. While they are attempting to leave the Strip in order to get over the fence into what is known as the Garbage Pile they are caught outside after curfew by patrol. They have two choices: Surrender or fight. They chose to fight and ended this part with a nice bang.

{Part Two} – I didn’t enjoy reading this part as much as the first. I felt cheated. The first part ended with so much action. I assumed it would carry into the second, but no, that’s not what happened. Instead we were given lots of flirting parts between Wes and Nat. Yes, they kept the story and adventure going but it wasn’t holding onto my interest well. Instead I had to push forward hoping for it to get better.

{Part Three} – Sadly, this portion only slightly reached my expectations. We had more flirting and Nat finally showed her true colors. Their ship got some what ruined, but it wasn’t action packed enough to pull me back in. We also learned more about Nat’s back story and that Wes has a twin sister. It would also lead one to assume that all the flirting is eventually going to lead to some romance. Still, however, I am still not impressed with the book at this point.

{Part Four} – This part was a bit more entertaining. We got to learn more about the night that Wes’s sister went missing. We learned more about Nat and who she was before she landed in New Vegas. We also were introduced to some miner excitement.

{Part Five} – I am happy to say that this portion for the most part redeemed the book for me. It brought back the action and the adventure and sucked me right back into it’s pages. The only thing I think is that some of this action should have happened much early and been strewn throughout the book and not just in the first and last part. The action to me is what was making the book readable and pulling me into it’s story line.… (mehr)

{My thoughts} – Once again we get the pleasure of the current book picking up where the last one had left off. So much happened in the last book. I suppose we can do a slight recount of the important things. We learned what really happened the night that Wes’s sister Eliza had been taken from their home all those years ago. We learned who Elia really was and that Wes and Nat were a lot more alike then we had originally thought.

Nat is going through a rough time trying to get her drakon back from Eliza. Eliza took the drakon and now Nat is having problems trying to hold onto the bond that she and her drakon have learned to depend on. Without the bound they she does not have the drakon sight and without that she feels lost, she is even more lost without her drakon’s thoughts in her head telling her what to do or reassuring her when things get iffy.

In the last book Wes and Nat and the crew were all thrown into a place where they were to be hunted by normal people. They were to be slaughtered. They were to be destroyed because they were different. They survived it all only to be attacked by Wes’s sister and then some old pals that they thought were dead. They survived it all only to watch all those that they had recued be executed before their very eyes. All that to them while out on the boat in the water appeared to be for nothing.

Wes and his crew weren’t left with much choice they had to go back into the city they were fleeing in order to hope for survival from the attack. They had to try and save as many of the marked as they could and try and stop them all from dying. They had to do something. They had no choice but to risk it all and hope for a good ending. While they were there Wes kept hearing things in his head and he kept pushing it away, eventually he gave in and they learned it was the Queen from The Blue. She portaled to where they were in an attempt to save them but not all of them, she said Nat wasn’t welcome. That Nat wasn’t a protector, that she was a pretender and that she wasn’t allowed back into The Blue.

Of course that didn’t go over well with Wes and he fought against the Queen and the Queen’s magic and he prevailed but at a cost. The Blue was left vulnerable and was being attacked by the RSA and the Queen was no where to be found. Wes had to go outside the portal to find her and drag her back and when he did she refused to help. Since the Queen wouldn’t help the only way to defeat the enemy was for Nat to call upon her darakonfire and she did, again it was at a cost. What happens next?

There was so much going on in this book that I was pulled into it from start to finish. There was so much adventure and battle and conflict and resolve. It all went hand and hand with each other so nicely. I enjoyed reading it and learning all the new things that there was to learn. I enjoyed the twists and the turns of the story. I some what wish that it hadn’t have come to end, that this wasn’t the end of the series. I feel that that could be more to the story and with the way the book ended there was definitely and opening left where the authors could have continued the story or started a new spin off series maybe, I don’t know for sure, I am sad to see it end though. I managed to fall in love with the characters and when that happens and the series ends it leaves you with a feeling of loss and right now I am feeling that feeling, I know it’s over but honestly I don’t want to accept that it is.… (mehr)