Lead Heart By Jane Washington

Title: Lead Heart

Author: Jane Washington

Series: Seraph Black #3

Genre: Romance, YA, Fantasy, Magical Powers, love triangle (hexagon?)

Source: ARC

Pages: 317

Rating:4 Stars

Available at:

Amazon (CA) • Goodreads • Amazon (US)

Blurb:

The past few months have reduced Seraph Black to a permanent state of fight, and now it is all that she knows. She is fighting her friends and family to go off on a suicide mission to rescue Silas, she is fighting the fragmented memories that clamour for recognition inside her mind, and she is fighting a guilt so magnificent… it might just force her to betray the very people that have sacrificed so much to keep her safe. 

She had asked for space, and it had been given to her in the most heart-rending of ways, leaving only one of the four brothers remaining by her side. 

Miro Quillan is her last hope. 

Without him, she may never get her pairs back. 

Review:

I have so much to say in this review that I am going to just jump into it.

We all left Watercolour Smile with a desperation to find out what would happen to Seraph and her boys (specifically that of Silas). I was foaming at the mouth to get my hands on this ARC, and despite the havoc going on in my life, I devoured reading it as soon as I could. There was so much that was amazing in this book, but there were somethings I also found lacking.

Starting off with the short list of things I did not particularly love about this instalment, I had a terrible time getting into the beginning of this book. I had reread Watercolour Smile to get myself excited, and jumped into Lead Heart finding myself losing momentum very quickly. I lost it enough that I was able to put it down and leave it for a couple of days until I worked up my curiosity again. So let me warn you now, this third novel in the series does not continue from right where we left off, but rather several months later… with absolutely nothing being accomplished on the saving Silas front, or even their lives other than graduating and starting in on university. I feel like this was an extremely poor choice, not for only preference reasons on my own behalf, but rather because the fluidity of the series as a whole. If you read them in succession, this novel kind of takes a full brake stop, and you have to work your way back into the series again. I feel like the approach taken at the beginning would have been much more effective with some more flashbacks or something of that regard to show us what was happening in those pivotal moments after Silas sacrificed himself for Seraph. Saying all of that, the fluidity (and I suppose you can say part of the plot) was (were) the only real issues I had with the novel, because once it got going, it was amazing!

Let’s talk about character/ relationship development. As a main character, Seraph isn’t the strongest I have read about. She largely lets the men (and her friends) in her life make and/or heavily influence the choices she makes. One of the things I really loved about this novel (leading out from the previous book) is that Seraph was much stronger of a character. She held much more independence from the men in her life (it helped that two of them don’t remember loving her, and another is taken captive), and she maintains that independence and tenacity throughout the novel and I assume she will into the next. I loved watching her relationship with Miro grow. It had been lacking in the previous two novels for several reasons that are described, and to be honest I never really rooted for him until this novel. Jane Washington set up their relationship perfectly, and their development from student/ teacher to friends/ actually more than friends is something that is beautifully displayed and really fascinating to develop. Oddly enough, I didn’t love Silas in this book. In all the ways I fell in love with him in Watercolour Smile I felt lacking in Lead Heart. I am not sure if that was to make room for her relationship to grow with Miro, but I would have liked to see more of the Silas we all fell head over heels with, and less arrogant, lying asshole.

CAN WE TALK ABOUT THE STALKER! I am not going to say much her for Spoiler reasons, but we FINALLY get to know who he is and what his deal is with Seraph. A lot more makes sense here, and I frikken loved it. The only issue is that I don’t strictly recall if the stalker (who shall remain nameless in this review) is ever really named in the first two novels, even off handedly. We know he went to school with her and the boys, but not much else. I wish there had been more clues to his identity earlier in the series.

Lastly, let’s talk about the writing because at least here I have no negative comments to make. Jane Washington is an amazing writer and she continues to amaze me with her talent. While I did mention how I felt the fluidity of the novel was lacking, the plot did not suffer by it and we get to an amazing ending that invites another novel (and I think the last novel if I read things correctly). There is no MAJOR cliffhanger, but rather a ending with many ends that have yet to be tied together tightly.

Overall, I stand by my statement that the Seraph Black Series is a must read. The books build and build and build and I have a feeling that they are going to build to an amazing conclusion that only Jane Washington knows at this point. Lead Heart gave us everything we needed (even if it took a while to get there sometimes) and even gave us some things we didn’t know that we wanted. 4 stars for Jane Washington’s Lead Heart.