8.13.2010

Dark Flame Review

After almost losing her best friend Haven in the previous installment, Ever is transitioning her friend into the life of an Immortal. The only problem is Haven is acting crazy with her new found power and can not be trusted to keep their secret. She’s turned into a completely different person and Ever is scared of what will happen to her and Damen if their secret gets out.

In the mean time, Ever has screwed up once again with dark magic. She is now bound to Roman and finds herself drawn to him constantly. Like a zombie, she floats over to his house wanting to be with him despite Roman being an evil Immortal who tried to kill her boyfriend Damen. Because of the spell Ever finds herself physically unable to communicate what is going on to Damen or to anyone else for help. The only place she can find solace is in Summerland.

Without any other options, Ever decides to trust in her boss Jude and takes him to Summerland with her. Jude has no knowledge of the Immortals and trusting in him could result in exposing herself to the world. Can Jude be trusted and will he find a way to help Ever break the spell that is binding her to Roman?

Will Roman figure out that Ever is under a spell and use this to his advantage? Will he ever give Ever the cure so she can be with Damen? How will Haven adjust to her new life?

Dark Flame is the fourth installment in The Immortals which is a YA paranormal series featuring an immortal teenager named Ever Bloom. As always there are plenty of exciting moments but this time I was able to almost predict what would happen in the end. It wasn’t as much a surprise to me as previous books but that may just be because I have figured out how Alyson Noel writes.

It’s definitely an interesting premise and I am intrigued to find out what happens next for Ever and Damen. The writing was solid and as always there wasn’t a dull moment. Haven was transformed into a rather bitchy and ignorant girl whom I didn’t particularly like, but becoming Immortal changes people I guess. It would have been interesting for Ever and Haven’s friend to be around a little more, so maybe he could catch Haven acting weird now and drinking the Immortal drink also, but I guess he had to go to Italy for a reason.

I enjoyed reading about the magic spells and all the little rituals Ever did when performing them. My only main annoyance is the same one I had before about the ‘’no touching or we die’’ thing. I hate how they found this easy solution around the problem. I just think it would have been a great idea for magic NOT to be the solution this time and to leave them in love but unable to even touch each other’s hand without the fear of dying.

I know a lot of people hate that Ever continues to make mistake after mistake in this series. But if everything went right, then there would be no tension and suspense to see what happens in the next book right? In all fairness the blame in this installment isn’t necessarily on Ever at the end, it’s on someone else. But Ever caused the problem once again so I guess she doesn’t learn; again though she’s a teenager and teenagers make mistakes over and over! I guess the predictability of Ever messing everything up can get tiresome but I believe in the end she will save the day and turn out the hero in all of this. I have faith that will happen and hope I am not let down.

I did find a lot more to my liking in Dark Flame and I think this book made up for the previous one, Shadowland. The next book, Night Star, (due out November 16, 2010) is actually the final book in the series so I am interested to see how Alyson Noel will wrap everything up. Alot like the Twilight series, people either love it or hate it, and I for one love it. More please?

Read my reviews of the previous books in this series at the following links:
Evermore - Book 1 Review
Blue Moon- Book 2 Review
Shadowland- Book 3 Review

2 comments:

  1. I still haven't gotten around to reading these but they've been on my list since the first one came out.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Jen! It's an interesting series. Try it out!

    ReplyDelete

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