Karen Lynch

This is a gripping YA sci-fi adventure that completely pulled me in. Set in a future where Earth is dying, the story follows Charlie, a bright and independent teenager who stumbles upon a secret that could change everything. I loved her strength, her loyalty to her best friend Finley, and how the story balanced action, heart, and just a hint of romance. The pacing was perfect, especially in the last third, which was packed with tension and surprises. Karen Lynch does a fantastic job creating show more believable characters and a world that feels urgent and real. Even though it stands alone, I’m hoping for a sequel. I couldn’t put it down and highly recommend it to sci-fi fans. show less

Full review will be posted tomorrow but in the meantime...

I need book two (and a tissue!), like, yesterday.

That was phenomenal.

Updated Review:

When I read the Relentless series, I enjoyed the luxury of it being a completed story, so I could devour it without a care. I told myself that I should try to pace myself when I began Pawn...

That did not happen.

Despite having a munchkin who wants my attention at every waking hour, I finished the book in two evenings. I knew from the characters and show more storyline of Relentless that a Karen Lynch story would hook me quick, and this new series certainly didn't fall short of that.

When Jesse's bounty hunter parents go missing, she finds herself joining the family business to gain access to the contacts and answers she needs to track down her family. A healthy dose of mystery kicks the novel off and immediately immerses the reader in a world of competing rivals, paranormal antics and inequalities, and the ever-intriguing world of the Fae. Lynch's familiarity with the slow burn (as readers of the Relentless series will be well used to) carefully marks the moments between the action, and the ending... while not a cliffhanger per se, will leave you desperately looking for a preorder link for book two.

This was a very enjoyable read, and one I know I'll be revisiting several times before the next is released. show less

You cannot believe how glad I am that I stumbled upon this book. I am a huge lover of this genre however recently I have grown bored reading ya fantasy books that mirror each other’s structure and characters. So I was absolutely ecstatic when I came across this book and read the first chapter. Relentless was completely refreshing in that it had kickass characters who were amazing (yet realistic) and a fast paced plot with so much action and adventure that made the book impossible to put show more down. My only disappointment is that Karen Lynch hasn’t written more books!!!
This book has shot to the top of my favourites list! show less

In my never-ending quest for a YA book that doesn't seem to be just plain stupid, I found this little nugget.
Well, this is not true but as I have trouble finding new reading material I, again and again, become tempted to try another well-rated interesting-sounding YA but am almost always badly disappointed.
In comparison to the rest of popular YA, this one was pretty good.
Nowadays this would've probably been tagged as new adult tho.

At the time of writing this, I have already completed the show more first 3 books and the 4th seems to be the same story from another perspective. I am a bit torn on how to rate this one. Just looking at this first book I'd rate it a high 3 stars but with the context of the two following books its barely 3 stars. Looking at how the third volume ends it seems this was initially only planned as a trilogy but was continued later.

Onto the bad things I noticed as always:

It suffers a bit from mary sue but the mc is still flawed enough to keep her interesting if you lean in that direction. (mc with lots of special things about him/her.)

What stood out the most to me was a flaw I commonly see in YA. Namely this weird split in maturity. Most of the time she acts consistently with a believable maturity, sometimes making somewhat stupid decisions which match her personality, but now and then especially in heart to heart sections everyone suddenly acts incredibly and unnaturally mature which throws me off. It repeatedly prevents the dreaded miscommunication-that-leads-to-disaster trope (the story is not completely safe from that one either tho) but dialogues suffering from that seem forced and stilted.

Another thing is that there are quite a lot of strands of the story that just lead nowhere. They are completely irrelevant to the story and don't serve any other purpose either.

There are a few contradictions in the magic but as its clearly a very soft, touchy-feely kind of magic system, this generally isn't a big problem.
In the first book, we know so little about the magic that this is easily ignored but because the author has no problems to badly violate her own rules for a bit of extra dramatic effect, especially in climactic scenes, it becomes worse and worse the more we learn about the parameters of different abilities which results in bad inconsistencies in later books.

To me, it seems like most of this series is discovery-written without a whole lot of notes that were actually consulted later on.

There is a lot of plot convenience happening but it didn't negatively stand out to me. I can not say if that was because I was somewhat preoccupied with other things while listening to the audiobook (aka tired) or because it is actually well hidden. show less