A High-Octane Finish to a Trilogy?

Raven’s Rise is the third book in the World on Fire series by Lincoln Cole. I haven’t seen the author use the word ‘trilogy,’ although admittedly I haven’t looked that hard. But this installment clearly brings to a close a number of mysteries and leaves few characters hanging by a thread…unlike the previous books. So, yes, it has the feel of the end of a trilogy, while leaving ample room for the same characters to fight new hordes of demons and leave us again gasping for breath.

As I did after book 2, I’ll address the question, are these books standalone or do you need to read them in order? And I’ll stick with my previous answer – I’d strongly recommend sticking with the sequence. If nothing else, you’ll miss out on the development of Haatim as a character if you start here, and for me, that was central to the story.

Raven’s Rise is primarily action-oriented, starting from the first chapter, which put my heart in my throat. The mysteries that were laid out in books 1 and 2 get resolved, often with a plot twist. But none of the twists seemed to release any tension, as it built continuously to the end. The author’s writing style is informal, almost as if he is just telling you a story by the campfire. Of course, with the prominence of evil in these books, the story might not be one you’d enjoy that much at night, far from the safe confines of your home. The downside of this style, however, is that occasionally the sentences become a bit convoluted. But with a handful of such situations in a 370-page book, it’s not really an issue – for me, anyway.

No review is complete without some critique, and for me, there were just a couple of areas I wished the story had been handled differently. First, one of my pet peeves with fantasy/occult books is when all the supernatural conventions of the first, in this case, 2.5 books get violated in the final pages in order to reach a resolution. This happened, in a way, in that something inexplicable occurred at the end. But it appeared so late and seemed so tangential that I wonder if it is just the author’s segue to the next trilogy? We’ll see. And second, by about 70% of the way through the book, the mysteries had been resolved and the battle lines had been drawn - all that was left was the fight to the death. But that covered over 100 of those 370 pages. To me, the impact of this book would have been doubled if the finale had been halved. My heart can only race for so long.

So, for a superior (perhaps) trilogy, featuring some great action, unexpected twists, and plenty of tension to go around, don’t miss this series. And if you have to read just one of the series, make it Raven’s Rise. ( )