Fate's Edge [Mass Market Paperback]

Living in Australia - the land where books seem to cost three times what they do in the States - I was ecstatic to find myself in a K-Mart in Florida where Fate's Edge was on sale for about five bucks! But now I think even that was too much to pay for this book.

I love Ilona Andrews and have read everything this writing team have ever published, but Fate's Edge was just awful. Three quarters of the way through I accidentally left it at my auntie's place in Sydney but I just don't care. I wouldn't have finished it anyway.

I can't stop wondering, what went wrong?

For me it was the two main characters and their "romance". I use the term 'romance' loosely because I haven't read such a tired, limp-wristed 'romance' in a very long time.
Kaldar is a prime example of Ilona Andrew's stock hero: he's handsome, sexy, powerful, dangerous and has a smart mouth. Rinse and repeat.
I don't mind similar heros, hey, if it aint broke, don't fix it. But I found Kaldar to be a shallow, boring character, something I've been noticing with all the Edge books. Curran (hero of the Kate Daniels series) isn't much different from Kaldar, but he is given about six novels (to date) to grow and change and exhibit some idiosyncrasies. Kaldar seems to have been written in a slapdash hurry, with no thought to anything but ticking the necessary romance hero boxes. See defining traits listed above.
I was bored by Kaldar, and many of his smarta*s comebacks struck me as annoying and juvenile. I kind of wondered if both authors had written down what they thought of as amusing fights between husband and wife and bunged that into the dialogue. It felt false and distinctly unfunny.
What passed as sexy descriptions and dialogue were comments on either Kaldar or Audrey's ass and the wonderful shapeliness thereof. If I had a dollar for every time a description of Audrey or Kaldar's ass came up in this novel I would have enough to buy every single book on sale at K-Mart in Tampa.

Audrey was even more annoying to me than Kaldar. At least he was boring enough to fade into the background. Audrey was always swearing or hitting Kaldar over the head for kissing her or threatening him and others with bodily violence. She was so aggressive I unconsciously started imagining her in my head as some auburn-haired female body builder - of the kind I see in pictures at my local gym that frighten my brother and all his weight-lifting mates.
Can a female protagonist be tough and brave and capable WITHOUT coming off as a hostile, violent shrew? Yes. This author is more than capable of providing a*s kicking heroines with a little femininity and depth, which is why I am so confused as to what went wrong here?
In the hopes of winning Audrey some sympathy from readers, Ilona Andrews provides us with a large and detailed retelling of her past and her horrible family. That would be fine... once. But after the third *detailed* mention of Audrey's sad history I was borderline ropeable. Enough with the repeating info-dumps! It's been at least three pages since Kaldar mentioned Audrey's ass, on with the story.

Apart from our two leads, basically every single character mentioned in the Edge series (and dear God there are a lot of them) is given page time - just so we can be unsubtly reminded of their existence and the plot can be further slowed by their unnecessary involvement in the story.
I found myself getting annoyingly confused with all the blithering characters and then there was all the big bad government sponsored gangs to keep track of. The Hand, The Mirror and The Claws of Bast all seemed similar although we are told repeatedly how TERRIBLE and FRIGHTENING they all are.

Too many secret societies with violent reputations, too many unnecessary characters, too many mentions of protagonists' a*ses, too little romance, too many pages.
That about sums up my feelings on Fate's Edge.

Audrey being a former conman, or woman that is, left that life behind her when she left her family in the Edge. Of course her plans to stay straight go out the window when her father swindles her into one last job. It was one job she never should have taken as she quickly learns. Kaldar, a man with many tricks and identities works for the Mirror in hopes of getting revenge against The Hand for the slaughter of his family. His latest assignment was to retrieve a stolen item in order to prevent a war should have been easy, but as soon as he meets Audrey, he knows it won't be the simple job he expected. He'll have to drag her into helping him even if she's kicking and screaming the entire way.

I was excited to see that Fate's Edge was centered around my favorite character from the previous book. I really loved Kaldar and was hoping to see more of him and luckily I got my wish. I also couldn't wait to get to meet the woman who would tame this ladies man, and boy let me tell you that she sure does give him a run for his money. Every small victory he won with her was fought for tooth and nail making their romance all the more meaningful. I personally hate characters who instantly fall head over heels in love. Lust sure, but love, well that takes a little more time then "Hi, how are ya?" Fate's Edge had that perfect balance of a natural progression that wasn't too quick, but also didn't tip over into frustratingly slow either. Of course I think a lot of that perfect balance had to do with the type of characters these two are. I mean, ho would have thought two grifters would have ever stood a snowball's chance, but some how you can just see how these two would work. It sure made for a very interesting dynamic between the two as they were very similar in many ways. I was rooting for them them entire time and each small victory or progress between them literally made me cheer, that's how attached I was.

My absolute favorite part of Fate's Edge was the major role that Jack and George play. I love the two of them in the first book, and couldn't wait to see more of them. They have really grown and matured, but you can still tell they are children as they still have a long road ahead of them. My heart really went out to them as they are still going through the growing pains of the change in their lives as they no longer live in the Edge. Of course the Bluebloods are rather cruel and unaccepting, which leads to a lot of fear and resentment. Speaking of that immaturity, that has a lot to do with how they became front and center in Kaldar's latest mission, but I can't say that I didn't like how things turned out. It was really nice to see the boys in their element, and I have a feeling as more time goes on they will be quite powerful, as they are already pretty skilled. Perhaps one day they will have books of their own. (I can hope, right?)

The previous installment was a little chaotic with all the addition of so many different characters and factions. A huge learning curve in a book can really lessen the enjoyment, so I was really glad to see that Fate's Edge built on that foundation rather than starting all over yet again. The main conflict centered again around The Hand, with a few twists of course. I had a feeling the Edger's triumph in the last book would have some future consequences and it turns up I was right. Also there was plenty of foreshadowing of what may come in the future to make me very eager to get my hands on the next installment. Of course there will be a wait, but as with any of this author duo's books, I'm sure it will be more than worth it in the end. Major kudos to Ilona Andrews for once again providing me with a solid block of entertainment that left me more than satisfied in the end.

I'm a big fan of Ilona Andrews' work - the Kate Daniels series is outstanding, and the previous Edge books were very good. This latest one, not so much. It was just....okay. About halfway through, I was really considering putting it down and going on to something else because the story had lost its focus. There's only so many times you can stand to read Kaldar's "witty" thoughts because honestly, there were only a very few of those. I was tired of hearing about Audrey's ass, too. It was worn-out dialog and not fun to read.

It just was really repetitive and boring. I enjoyed George and Jack, and thought those characters were really developed nicely in this book. I cried when Jack went into rend mode - really an end of innocence of a sort there, and well written.

I'd like to see another Edge book, but it would need to be at the higher standards of the first two books. Maybe tell the grandmother's story, build up some more background on the Edge world, and make it something I'm going to stay up all night to read.

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 96 reviews  4.3 out of 5 stars