Blog Tour Review: An Immortal Descent by Kari Edgren

From the Back Cover:

Selah Kilbrid, descendant of the Celtic goddess Brigid, has been ordered to remain in London and leave any dangers in Ireland to her goddess-born family. They fear she's no match for Death's most powerful daughter and—if the legend holds true—the witch who once nearly destroyed the Irish people. But Selah has never been good at following orders, and nothing will stop her from setting out to find the two people she loves most—her dearest friend, Nora Goodwin, and her betrothed, Lord Henry Fitzalan.

Hiding from kin, traveling uneasily beside companions with secrets of their own, Selah is forced on an unexpected path by those who would steal her gift of healing. With precious time ticking away, she turns to a mortal enemy for help, heedless of the cost.

Selah would pass though hell to rescue Nora and Henry, but what if it means unleashing a greater evil on the human world? Her only chance is to claim the fullest extent of her birthright—at the risk of being forever separated from the man she longs to marry.

My Thoughts:

I was anxiously anticipating this final installment in the Goddess Born trilogy. I have enjoyed the Irish mythology references, the characterizations, and the settings of Colonial America and Georgian London, and I was looking forward to a final showdown between good and evil in Ireland. This book picks up pretty much where the second book left off, with Selah desperately trying to save her best friend, Nora, from the clutches of an evil witch and trying to find her fiance, Henry, who took off after them in an effort to prevent Selah from placing herself in more danger. But Selah is separated from her travel partners and fellow rescuers early on and has to make her own way to Ireland. And that turns out to be extremely difficult since the enemy has sent a gang of henchmen to stop her.

Unfortunately, I was very frustrated with the first half of this book. It started off very well, but it didn't take long for the story to veer away from the heart of the conflict. There was too much focus on new characters, and Selah ended up in several situations that prolonged her journey to Ireland to be reunited with her fiance and continue the search for her best friend. As Selah met one new character after another and was pursued by one new villain after another, I found myself thinking, "This is silly. We already have a central conflict in place and it's waiting for us in Ireland, so can we please hurry up and get there, for crying out loud?" Henry didn't even enter the story until the halfway mark. And if you've read my reviews of the first two books, you know that Henry is a big part of the appeal of these books for me.

So the continuation of the real story finally begins when Nora arrives in Ireland and finds one heck of a surprise waiting for her. That was a nice twist, but the explanation and development is stunted since there is so much to cram into the second half of the book. More surprises are in store as the group of intrepid Goddess Born face off with one deranged witch while trying to keep another from escaping imprisonment. Nothing less than the destruction of Ireland is at stake, and while there are some exciting moments as the trilogy reaches the climactic moment we'd all been waiting for, I found some of the revelations and plot twists to be too convenient, stretching my limits of belief and weakening the resolution of the story. All's well that ends well, but even that felt rushed, and the moment Selah and Henry fans had been anticipating through three books came and went in a flash, and then it was over. No epilogue, no hint of what the future holds. Fans of the series will of course have to read this final book to see how it all plays out, but this fan had been hoping for more.

My Rating:  3 Stars out of 5

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An Immortal Descent