The Call for Finis: Pride is a quick novella full of deeper meaning. Told in a type of omniscient third person POV that flows between the three main characters as needed, we’re presented with a story that may feel a bit familiar to some readers. The main character may be Salvia, but the reader is given almost equal page time with the knight Baldric and his companion, Zinnia as they travel the countryside—rather reluctantly at times—keeping Salvia safe as she and the demon within travel to purge a city of sin. It was an interesting look at demons and angels that flipped the traditional view of demons on its head. I really loved the demon, Ultor! The novella is also not subtle about the social issues it incorporates from our current world and places within this fantasy setting, keeping it very rooted in a world that is unnervingly similar to ours at times.

“The Fall” is a modern take on the classic 1984, and boy, how is it! This story is very much a social commentary on the current world we live in (2017, though it still very much applies in 2020) where the populace is controlled by their technology, digesting only the news the government feeds them, preferring to lose themselves in social media platforms and trying to get a larger following, then noticing that the idyllic world they live in is anything but. The parallels to the world we have now (in America anyway) are uncomfortably obvious, and Doellinger is a very talented writer not only to bring all this together, but to craft such a twist and bittersweet ending. But I had a hard time really getting into the book.

Well, that’s it, I finally finished this trilogy. I’ve loved this trilogy from the start. I loved the idea of the angels fabricating an apocalypse just because one of them wants to be the Messenger and was tired of waiting around. I loved the constant struggle Raffe has with wanting to be with Penryn, but also yearning to be back with his brothers, his kind. I love that Penryn is so aware of his struggle, that she doesn’t hold these desires against Raffe and takes the time to stop and think, if our positions were switched, wouldn’t I do the same? This final book had a lot of loose ends to tie up, between Raffe still needing his wings back, Paige starving because she refuses to eat her new food source due to the barbaric experiments done on her, and you know, saving mankind along the way. But for all the new, creepy and action filled areas and new locations Ee takes us to in this book, it took a while to get going, and then ended all too quickly.

It may seem like a bad idea to read a book about a bio-chemical weapon that exhibits like a flu and prompts mass panic during an actual pandemic, but that’s what I did and it was a kind of interesting study in how reality and fiction can blur sometimes. In Myers novel, a bio-chemical is released in a small town, which appears to be done on purpose for "research". When these strange flu-like symptoms prompt the schools to close early, it sparks our main character’s father, who works at the lab that seems to be responsible, to flee with his teenage son and their next door neighbor and his teenage niece. The rest of the novel occurs over the course of 3 to 4 days as the group races from the quarantined zone—now without cell service and a military presence—to get to the family cabin and potential safety. This is an incredibly fast paced young adult, action romance with a unique twist on the “zombie” genre.

Are you like me and hold a special place for Greek Mythology in your heart? Do you also enjoy YA dystopians with some seriously tragic characters? Then let me introduce you to “Helm of Darkness”. In a nutshell, this book is about the classic Greek Gods (Zeus, Hades, Poseidon, you know, that old gang) getting fed up with being forgotten by us mortals. So, in classic Greek God fashion, they destroy the world and make all us mortals worship them once more. How charming. Except there’s this prophecy, because of course, and this prophecy says that two mortals are going to save the day! Usually I am not the biggest fan of these types of tropes, but I was here for it this time.