Review: Forever and Beyond by Jayde Scott (Ancient Legends #5)

Title: Forever and Beyond (Ancient Legend #5)

Author: Jayde Scott

Genre: Young Adult, Paranormal Romance, Mystery, Fantasy

Publisher: Scotland (self-published)

Synopsis/Summary: Hidden from mortal eyes and divided into three factions are the creatures of darkness that coexist with mortals.

In the witches’ town Morganefaire, an ancient legend tells the story of a mirror that was once shattered into four fragments, each able to entrap a powerful soul.

Eighteen-year-old Amber is a struggling necromancer on a mission: help vampire Aidan stop the Prophecy of Morganefaire and protect the innocents from the inevitable fate that will befall them should the wrong faction win. When bodies begin to pile up, Amber realizes she has no choice than to work together with the fashion-savvy yet irritating ghost of a young witch to solve the mystery and protect the one she loves.

In a world of forbidden love, of ancient enemies and bonds spun by fate, nothing is as it seems and no one can be trusted. Amber’s life will never be the same again unless she finds out who the murderer is, and quick, before everything she ever loved is taken from her forever…

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      Wow, a cliff-hanger, that's rare in this series! I know from the Feature & Follow post this week that many actually hated cliff-hangers, but I actually really liked them ;) I don't mind waiting, but if the book comes out 2 years later than the previous book, I would be really pissed. I guess it all depends on how the cliff-hanger was set up and how long 'til the next of the series was out. In Forever and Beyond's case, I love the cliff-hanger! Although, to be fair, Shadow Blood, the sixth in the series is already out, so I didn't really care about the cliff-hanger ending ;P

    There is another thing that I love about this book, it's the mystery. This time, the book features a murder mystery instead of the whole secretive boyfriend thing, and I must say I love murder mysteries much much more! The mystery was set up pretty good, we have Amber, still our protagonist, arrived in Morganefaire, an ancient witch/warlock town that no one knows existed and where it was located, and also immediately a dead girl turned up. The people wanted to blame it on Amber, since she was a new comer and a vampire (Aidan and Kieran had been there before), and Amber must solve the mystery about the murder before she was killed herself... As much as I love the whole mystery thing, I must say this book still didn't provide much in terms of answers to the mystery. Actually, it wasn't solved at all. There was a link somewhere between different events, but the book ended we can see how Amber links all things together. 

    Another complain I have on this book is how bad it handled all the unsolved mystery from the last book. At the start of the book, we had Amber do a brief recap on the events that happened in the last few books, since that happens in a lot of series books, I don't really mind. What really annoyed me is that the unanswered questions were kind of just glossed over and were just briefly explained within one paragraph or so. It was like Scott wanted to just throw away all the remaining loose ends immediately so she can start new ones. I like a good ending to each and every plot lines, so this whole explained-within-a-sentence thing really pissed me off.

    Also, the love triangle from the last book was kind of just brushed off the second Amber knew who was haunting her in the last book. She blamed the whole showing-affection-to-Devon thing as the ghost's fault, which I totally disagreed. She was the one who called him when she needed someone to talk to, and all the moments they shared together didn't seem forced. Deep down I know Amber actually had a thing for Devon, but for whatever reason, it was brushed off in this book. It was really unfair to this still-blooming love triangle, not to mention it was totally unsatisfying. It was actually a continuation of the whole throwing-away-all-loose-ends thing that I commented above.

    In this book we were introduced to Morganefaire, an ancient witch/warlock town which location was unknown. I liked the setting of Morganefaire, it was kind of original, a paradise (or at least, a safe place) for witches and warlocks to live in, so they won't be threatened by mortals. Good thinking, which definitely added some brownie points for my rating on this books.

 

     Sigh, still no Clare... I really want to read about Clare, it was mentioned that she lost her mate and I really wanted to know the story. Come on, Amber, give the mic to Clare already! Anyway, we did have some new characters in this book, the first one that I thought of is Julie, the ghost of the girl whose body was found shortly after Amber's arrival.

    I don't really like Julie all that much. She had many mood-swings, which Amber attributed to being a ghost. But I still hated it, she was mean to Amber and only wanted her to solve the mystery of her death and she didn't ask nicely either. She seemed spoiled to me, and I don't do spoiled characters. She did kind of bonded a friendship with Amber later in the book though, despite how treated Amber at times. I thought it was kind of annoying that she pushed Amber around, like she was the boss of her. Like I said, spoiled. I did like the mystery surrounding her murder, but other than that, I like nothing to do with this character :P

    This book was an acceptable addition to the Ancient Legends, and it definitely had its moments, but I really didn't think it was all that great, so I would give it a 3 stars. The book would be better suited for fans of the series, it was a good continuation on Amber's story. But if you're looking to butt into the series halfway, I don't suggest you to read this book first, as it was kind of a disappointment, at least to me, instead start with Doomed, the second book, which I gave a glowing five star review, I genuinely liked it! (Review here)

 

 

 

 

Rating: 3 stars!

How do you like cliff-hangers? What about a perfect way to tie up loose ends? What do you think a witch town should look like? And the most important thing of all, do you like this book? Personally I think the cover has some major problem, what's with the misshaped photo? :P Comment below, I would love to discuss ;)