Title: Brave (A Wicked Trilogy, #3)
Author: Jennifer L. Armentrout
Pub. Date: December 11, 2017
Rating: ♥♥♥♥
Ivy Morgan hasn’t been feeling like herself lately. Not like anyone can blame her. After all, being held captive by a psychotic fae prince hell-bent on permanently opening the gates to the Otherworld is bound to leave some mental scars.
It’s more than that, though. Something dark and insidious is spreading throughout Ivy, more powerful than she could ever imagine… and it’s coming between her and the man she’s fallen deeply in love with, elite Order member Ren Owens.
Ren would do anything to keep Ivy safe. Anything. But when he makes a life altering choice for her, the fallout of his act has far reaching consequences that threaten to tear their lives apart.
If Ivy is going to have any hope of surviving this, she must put aside the hurt and betrayal she feels, and work with not only those she loves, but with an enemy she would rather kill than ever trust. War is coming, and it soon becomes clear that what Ivy and Ren thought they knew about the Order, themselves, and even their enemies, has been nothing but a cluster of dangerous, deadly lies.
Ivy knows she must be more than just brave to save those she loves–and, ultimately, to save herself.
Because behind every evil fae Prince, there’s a Queen….
This will be a spoiler free review.
This is the final book in Jennifer L. Armentrout’s Wicked Trilogy, and as far as ending go, this was a pretty good one. I’ve been a fan of Jen’s since 2012. Finding her books and falling in love with them wasn’t planned – though I guess finding favorite authors never is. My friend and I were headed to a book signing for Nora Roberts in Boonsboro Maryland, and when we got there, Jen was signing as well. Out of pure curiosity, we each bought books – I think we both bought Half-Blood and Obsidian and we each ended up finishing one of them apiece. I couldn’t tell you if we both read the same book, or one of each, but I was hooked from that moment on.
About a month ago I was feeling tired and borderline book rut, and I knew I needed to read something that I knew I would enjoy and breeze through. Jen tends to be one of those authors for me. I absolutely love her books and haven’t read one that I haven’t liked. They are comforting, and I usually know what kind of story I’m going to get when I open the book. Looking at my shelves, I could see three books I could choose from, all of which the final books in series, so I just picked on.
Brave picks up where Torn left off, and it starts off swinging. It didn’t go from 0-100, it went from 50-100, and just kept ramping up. It’s been a long time since I had read Torn let alone Wicked and it took me a few chapters to remember what had happened in the previous books, but then I was flying through the finale. I devoured the book in a day, could barely put it down because I was so invested. It was nice to come back to these characters, especially Tink. I’d love to have him as a roommate, though, I definitely couldn’t afford his spending habits.
I loved Ivy in this book, having been broken, or nearly broken, we get to see her struggle in trying to find her strength again. With Ren always by her side, rooting for her, she starts to find herself again. She has no choice, the big bad that they have to face will require her to be brave, if not more. I loved their relationship in this book, because it was far from perfect. There was a lot of giving and taking and just trying to be supportive of each other. Are either of them perfect, no, but they work hard to work together and get through issues and hard moments.
So many things happened in this book that left me gaping, reeling, struggling with my emotions; but it also had me grinning and worrying, and enjoying every minute of it. You know that feeling that you can get in your chest when either A. something bad is about to happen and you know it, or B. it’s like the cutest, sweetest scene, or C. when something so shocking happens and you don’t know how to process it – yeah, that feeling didn’t leave my chest for like the whole book.
While I enjoyed this book as a whole, I wasn’t satisfied with the ending, but I’m hoping this latest novella The Prince (which was published today, 08/14) will help clear things up. The ending felt a little open ended and I’m not against returning to the world of Ivy, Ren and Tink, maybe years later (in their timeline). With the way Brave ended, it almost felt like there could be more and maybe Jen has future plans we don’t know about.
Overall, I loved this book and the characters. As far as a conclusion to this trilogy goes, it does tie up ends and I think you’ll be happy with how it all comes together. If you’ve read the first two books and haven’t read this one, what are you doing, get on it! And if you haven’t read this trilogy, I definitely recommend checking it out! Set in New Orleans, with fae, magic, an Amazon Prime loving Brownie, and kick ass characters, this trilogy will take you on a ride, full of ups, downs, with romance and friendships that are easy to get lost in.
Writing The Universe 