If Ven had expected rest after fulfilling his second mission for King Vandemere as royal reporter and having just barely escaped the Thief Queen’s clutches he is sorely mistaken.Barely a day later Vandemere gives Ven a new and rather confusing mission; Ven is to try settle a dispute between two warring kingdoms, one of which is also being menaced by an angry dragon. What’s more Ven has to take most of his friends with him as the Thief Queen is still fuming and has sent every agent at her disposal to track them all down. Some of those friends don’t get on as well with each other as Ven might have hoped.
Like the two previous novels the third follows the same format of having exerts of Ven’s lost journals interspacing the rest of the text put together by ‘archaeologists’. A format which has worked well and continues to do so. The only major difference being Ven now begins every chapter with a memory from home which he relates to his present circumstances, which could be the first hint that he might be beginning to feel homesick. The piece of this book that I find most striking is the awkward position Ven finds himself in when he must keep his merrow friend Amariel’s identity from his other friends and the conflict this evidently leads to. Even though Ven does everything he believes in right in this situation he encounters hostility from both sides. I thought this was a very intriguing stance to take in a young adult novel, essentially there is often no right or wrong answer and applaud the author.
All in all I enjoyed this installment in a series that has sadly not enjoyed the attention it should have. Based on the extract for the fourth book I’m really interested to see the twists it takes from here. 7/10.
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