Recently I got an offer from Goodreads.com for two months free of Amazon Kindle Unlimited, which allows you to read and or listen to certain books for no additional price. Normally it is $9.99 a month for access to over one million books, of which you can have ten different books at one time. I figured that since I have the opportunity to use it for free, I might as well read the rest of the Harbinger series.
While with the first two books I used the same service to listen to the books instead of reading it myself, which took about a month each time, I decided to read the third one. Now with the first one it took a while for the book to catch my attention fully. Since that point, the other two I have read did not have that issue. I think this may be the way that the characters were introduced and the amount of time that it took to get to the more interesting happenings in the book.
As I stated this third book, I had no problem with the amount of time it took to get into the book. It was so interesting that I read the whole book in four days.
Again, the book is split between the happenings around the two main characters of Cettie Pratt and Sera Fitzempress. You find in this one similarities to the first book where most of the book the two friends are in different places then one another. They both experience life as it happens to them and find more reasons to hope for better outcomes. You read about the choices they must make and see how life can sometimes seem a little unfair to those who do not have the same privileges as others.
You find in this book examples of how we sometimes make a decision, and it ends up backfiring on us and others find out about it they tend to make judgements on us and sometimes those can affect the way they treat us, and in Sera’s case in the book her actions cause her to be an outcast in society’s eyes. Her actions were viewed negatively, and she spent years in the care of someone thought highly of in society to be molded into the vision society believes a potential empress should be.
Cettie on the other hand is given the utmost respect from her adoptive parents. They see the way she had excelled at her schooling that after she is finished, they entrust her with the duties of running, maintaining and defending their home and business. Since she has not officially been adopted due to challenges of finding her parents this is a way for her to be involved with the invention she helped to create as well as stay close with the family. Cettie is given the charge of the household business as well as the collecting of and selling information to the government parties in the interest of the family.
We see that while these two young women had different starting places in life and came to have a bond with one another, they end up in reverse positions then when they meet. I see this as a view to always strive to do our best and remember everyone is going through things.
While Cettie has free reign and a lot of responsibilities she is still targeted by those wishing to cause her to stray from the path she is on in life. She is trusting in others that she is just getting to know, and they try to get her to change her ways. We see this in many different forms of everyday life. Sometimes it is not even someone new in our life who is the cause of it.
Sera on the other hand is allowed after many years and a few tests against what she has learned to move forward in her life towards the goal she has wanted. She still has many obstacles to overcome, but in this time of life she is given back more control of her own life.
Cettie finds that even when someone seems trustworthy, if you have an off feeling about them in some way you should listen to it. While she finds this out now, Sera had already discovered that people are not always what they seem, as well as the fact that they can change over time.
Both Sera and Cettie are saddened by the knowledge of an old school acquaintance passing, Sera gains first-hand knowledge as to how it happened. Cettie has a difficult time with the news since the school acquaintance had been trying to help her by finding her Mother so she could be adopted. While this death is hard on both, Sera gains the information about someone she was close by for many years and knows that the information passed to the right person can help her accomplish her goals more.
There is a lot of finding oneself and learning about the people around you in this book. Both Cettie and Sera learn something about the people they spend time with and choose to use the things they find to better someone’s situation. While Cettie helps someone, who has never fully accepted her presence with the family, she knows that doing so will protect her family in the long run. Sera uses the information she gains to make someone aware of the actions of a highly respected person in society. The information is an important knowledge that can lead to bringing this person to have some of their respect taken away, but if it is the truth it needs to be taken care of.
If you want to find the other two reviews I did they can be found here and here. Those of you who have read any of these books, let me know what your thoughts are for them.
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