(Website, , , )Series: Lux #3
Published by Entangled Publishing, LLC on 2012
Genres: paranormal, Science Fiction, Young Adult
Pages: 382
Format: Paperback
The Lux series continues with the third installment of this riveting paranormal YA series. No one is like Daemon Black. When he set out to prove his feelings for Katy, he wasn’t fooling around. Doubting him isn’t something she’ll do again and now that they’ve made it through the rough patches, well, there’s a lot of spontaneous combustion going on. But even he can’t protect his family from the danger of trying to free those they loved. With help coming from the most unlikely source and Adam’s death still lingering with those who loved him, friends will become the deadliest of enemies and the villains will no longer be clear. When each step they take in discovering the truth puts them in the path of the secret organization responsible torturing and testing hybrids, the more Katy realizes there is no end to what she’s capable of. They won’t turn back, even if the outcome will shatter their worlds forever.
“’Simmer down, Kitten, before I have to get you a ball of yarn to play with.’”
Katy finally admitted her feeling for Daemon in Onyx, meaning that sparks were flying in this book. With so much going on—like Blake, the DOD’s implant, still out there—the couple didn’t get a lot of alone time. Normality rate? Close to zero. When I finished Onyx, I hadn’t got this book yet and immediately reserved a copy at B&N—which I couldn’t get to fast enough. The ending of Onyx left me speechless and a little confused, meaning that I needed to continue this series.
“Petersburg was like the Bermuda Triangle for teenagers. Many came. Some were never seen again while others resurfaced from the rabbit hole.”
One major aspect of the first two novels was that Daemon and Dee’s brother, Dawson, was supposedly dead, along with his girlfriend, Beth—until he wasn’t and shows up at their doorstep on the last page of Onyx. I saw Dawson the way that Katy saw him, instead of the way that he used to be, since she had never met him and had only heard of him through the small town gossip. While he did have his creepy tendencies, like sneaking into her bedroom and having conversations with her the middle of the night, not liking him would have been tantamount to not liking Dee when I met her at the grocery store in the first book—impossible and just wrong. Dawson was a Black, and he had an irresistible quality about him, even when he had lost all of his marbles in a DOD holding facility.
Dee is one of the main reasons that you can’t read these books out of sequence. If you didn’t meet her bubbly, benevolent character, then how much she changed in this book wouldn’t have been as devastating. Adam’s death threw her into a completely different world, one where she wanted blood and recompense for what had happened to the Luxen she loved. Her and Katy’s already precarious relationship after what happened in the second book completely shattered, and it broke my heart to watch their friendship dissolve. One of the characters that I like automatically became someone new and somewhat frightening. Dee’s development throughout the series, so far, has been drastic, and one of the reasons that this book was impossible to put down.
“’It’s the unknown, Kitten. The unknown isn’t something that sits well. They’d rather push it away—not completely, but just enough that it’s not always shadowing their every thought and action.’”
If there was one character I thought I could’ve had pegged, it would have been Blake Saunders. Daemon let him go in the last book, and I didn’t expect to hear anything else from him. Then he shows up at school will the full intention of finishing his senior year. If there were moments when I didn’t like Katy, it was when she talked to Blake. Some of the things she said to him made complete sense—he did kill Adam—but some of her harsh words even made me flinch and feel sorry for him. I wavered between feeling sorry for Blake and being inordinately creeped out by Blake.
“Going from shy, book-nerd Katy to something impossible; someone who had changed on more than a cellular level.”
This story had so much action and suspense. Different in the best kind of way, not necessarily better, than the first two books, it adds to Katy’s characterization and her ultimate choice, as well as heated things up between her and Daemon.
“’You make me think before I act. You make me want to be a better person—Luxen—whatever.’”
What. Just. Happened? is all I could think when I turned the last page. The end—oh goodness, the end. If you’re not dying for the next book as soon as you finish this one, you must not have read it right. I’m proud of myself for not jumping immediately into Origin, but it took a lot of restraint. Opal was a whirlwind of romance, volatile alliances, haphazard friendships, and uncertainty lurking around every corner.
“’No, really? Crap. I was hoping you skipped to the end and would tell me what happens. I actually love spoilers.’”
About Jennifer L. Armentrout
# 1 New York Times and International Bestselling author Jennifer lives in Martinsburg, West Virginia. All the rumors you’ve heard about her state aren’t true. When she’s not hard at work writing. she spends her time reading, watching really bad zombie movies, pretending to write, and hanging out with her husband and her Jack Russell Loki.
Her dreams of becoming an author started in algebra class, where she spent most of her time writing short stories….which explains her dismal grades in math. Jennifer writes young adult paranormal, science fiction, fantasy, and contemporary romance. She is published with Spencer Hill Press, Entangled Teen and Brazen, Disney/Hyperion and Harlequin Teen. Her book Obsidian has been optioned for a major motion picture and her Covenant Series has been optioned for TV. Her young adult romantic suspense novel DON’T LOOK BACK was a 2014 nominated Best in Young Adult Fiction by YALSA.
She also writes Adult and New Adult contemporary and paranormal romance under the name J. Lynn. She is published by Entangled Brazen and HarperCollins.
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Nicole The Reading Rebel
I love this series and happy to see you are loving it also. Great Review 🙂
Moriah
It’s quite addictive! I’m glad you enjoyed the review. 🙂
Eva @ All Books Considered
Great point about Dee! Love this series and glad you are enjoying it! I need to re-read it soon!!
Moriah
I loved their relationship and hated to see it fall apart! The series is wonderful, and I definitely see why a reread would be necessary. 🙂