Title: The Forgotten Locket
Author: Lisa Mangum
Genre: YA Paranormal romance
Verdict: A solid finale.
Two years ago I got to read an advanced copy of The Hourglass Door at work. I occasionally spice up my reading list (robots/dragons/explosions) with some YA paranormal romance, because despite the large amount of crappy books in that genre, there are some that I enjoy--maybe even as a guilty pleasure.
Mangum's trilogy doesn't have to be a guilty pleasure, though. Even dudes can enjoy this one, though it is a straightforward romance. In the first book, Abby meets a new boy at school, Dante. Dante is a time traveler from Italy...500 years ago, to be precise. They hook up. (That's the point.) In the second book, Dante is taken from her, and she actually has to work to get him back.
This is the third book, the end of the story.
I liked it, as I liked the previous two. One of the great strengths of the trilogy is that the main character girl is smart (without reminding you on every page,) attractive (without pretending she's not, or assuming she is,) and capable of taking initiative. A common staple of this genre is the helpless stupid whiny girl who sits around and spends 400 pages describing how hot the Main Guy is while he does all the heavy lifting for her.
Not so with Mangum's books.
The first big challenge of this book is when Abby goes backward in time, and has to leave behind the familiar setting of her hometown. Granted, a lot of that town changed in the second book when Dante's rival, Vicenzo, really started to bugger things up with the timeline. I guess the next biggest challenge was dropping her 500 years in the past, away from Dante, who was--when she last saw--blinded by Vicenzo's knife.
What happens in the next 400 pages...well, it's not relevant for me to tell you hear if you haven't read the previous two books. Suffice to say that it's an intriguing exploration of Mangum's previous time travel ideas--building on it, evolving it, keeping it exciting.
If I have one complaint, it's that it took a long time to get to the crowning moment of the trilogy; it was really near the end of the book, and I went from feeling suspenseful to getting impatient. Maybe I'm just a guy. If you've read these, let me know in the comments.
Overall, I'm glad to see the series ended well, and that while it's a romance, it played its sci-fi elements very well. Even a dude can enjoy this. So check it out.
I've just begun reading the series again in anticipation of getting my hands on the third book. Fabulous sum up here (I say fabulous because I happen to actually agree with it). Cheers.
ReplyDeleteI actually read the book through twice because some of the stuff in the middle got a little confusing. I enjoyed it but I think it took too long to get to "the crowning moment" as you put it. I liked the ending/beginning of the river but what about Valerie?? Did her parents just accept that now she's fine and everything is OK?? Sorry just one of the things that bugged me :)
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