The Volatile Amazon (Alliance of the Amazons #4) by Sandy James

Sarita, the Water Amazon, is often considered the weakest of the four and certainly the least likely to be sent out on a mission alone. So she’s surprised when Ganga insists she goes on a mission that would normally be Becca’s field of expertise.

That’s not the first surprise – from falling into the hands of Ian who has been plaguing her dreams for weeks, but has his own plans to her – to then actually falling in love in the most unlikely circumstances, things change very quickly for her.

But they need to change – including her powers – as Helen advances her plots and becomes ever closer to destroying the Amazons – and the world with them.

Putting the romance to one side, there’s a lot to say about story and character development in this book.

This feels like the last book in the series and would be appropriate as such since each Amazon has had a book of her own. The book was perfectly written to close their ongoing story arc, deal with the big bad and end in a grand epic conflict. All the Amazons have their HEA, and the future is decided. It’s closed neatly and nicely with no unresolved threads. At the same time we have a careful nudging of that door ajar should future stories in the same world happen – along with cameo or even full appearances of the Amazons and their families. There’s a couple of storylines that could be pursued but don’t need to be –it’s a nice way to wrap up a series while still leaving the option of picking it up again.

The story also had a wonderful sense of epic. The consequences of failure were grand, emotional and extremely clear, the menace was well maintained and the fight scenes were action packed, excellently written and great fun

I also liked a lot of the character development. The goddesses have frequently been presented as vain, fickle, egotistical, petty, selfish and generally unpleasant and incapable of getting anything done. All of this is true. But this book also underscores that they do care – in their self-absorbed way – they care about humanity or they wouldn’t have created the Amazons at all. We have this displayed wonderfully and it adds some great depth to the four goddesses – and even Frejyr.

Sarita also grew well, going from a woman plagued by her insecurities about her scar and being the weakest Amazon to growing in her power and confidence, determined to be treated as an equal and be firmly respected by everyone, resisting any attempts to infantilise her. It was good to see – but unfortunately the whole “Volatile” element meant Sarita had a lot of temper tantrums storming out of the room. Even when they were justified, they were childish and not the way I would have expected her to resolve her issues, especially since we’ve seen no sign of it to date. But often her sisters had a point and their input should have been respected. It was annoying.

I do like that Sarita’s power growth was pushed by goodness. Sheer, pure hearted, goodness. I know that sounds twee, but it’s nice to see a character who is empowered through tweeness rather than being super dangerous or the child of a god or other source of immense power – Sarita is powerful because she is just such a good person. Good enough to use dark magic without being corrupted. Good enough to become the very opposite of a dark practitioner.

Those are the good. The bad is that I just didn’t get the story. Parts of it were unbelievable, parts of it didn’t make sense and parts of it were too damn vague.

The Brazen Amazon (Alliance of the Amazons #3) by Sandy James

 

Sekhmet, the Destroyer, has arisen again from her long imprisonment by her father, Ra. And she’s taking up her old task, what she was made to do, to end the world itself.

Which falls to the Amazons to stop her, as they would any Ancient running amok. Gina, the Air Amazon, is assigned to protect Zach, technological genius whose invention could hand Sekhmet the keys to the apocalypse.

Not that Zach knows it – or about magic, amazons, gods or the strange guys who can shock him to death with just a touch of their hands. After the second time he’s rendered unconscious, it’s going to be difficult for Gina to explain.

Especially since he may be the one for her – her soulmate just as her sisters have found. Which is going to be hard to pursue with the jealous and angry Richard, complete with his own agenda and his own ability to electrocute with a touch

One thing I liked about the relationship in this book is that we got away from having a male love interest who was an authority figure over the Amazon – which meant we had less of the orders and instructions that didn’t work for me in Impetuous Amazon and made Reluctant Amazon so very dubious. Gina can talk to Zach as an equal, even a superior because of her greater knowledge and power.

Yet, the relationship was far more annoying to me. We have the extremely fast-forwarded falling in love from Gina and Zach which is accompanied by lots of excessively describing how distracting the other is though they never ever ever feel like this for anyone else, not even women Zach is sleeping with because her presence for the last few days is just so much more special than any woman ever. And, yes, she is a 26 year old virgin.

Impetuous Amazon (Alliance of the Amazons #2) by Sandy James

Megan is the Fire Amazon – passionate, impetuous, short tempered and driven, she is all that is fire.

Unfortunately, all that is fire doesn’t include controlled, subtle or, necessarily wise and careful. And she’s been making mistakes – mistakes that involve killing monsters in public in full view of everyone and their mobile phones. And her emotions are volatile enough that she has a habit of sparking – and setting fire to things.

The goddesses have had enough – with only Frejya in her corner, the Sentinel Johann has been sent to Megan to see whether she can learn to control herself, or whether she is too much of a liability and needs to be stripped of her powers entirely. During the course of a mission to find missing girls, it’s his job to assess her, train her and decide what to do with her.

Of course, that would be easier if their mutual passion wasn’t lighting some more sparks – or if the missing person’s case wasn’t far more dangerous and involved than was originally imagined.

I like that the consequences of the last book are carried on to this one – and not just the obvious like the enemies and Rebecca having babies – but things like their training being cut short and Megan not having a full understanding of her powers or her role. Megan’s constant attempts to ensure that she is what a fire should be is a major theme – she is playing a role, an act many times. There’s a lot of fire in her – she is, after all, the fire amazon but she’s unsure enough in the role that she feels she has to put on extra behaviour, to fake it.

This, coupled with an extra analysis of her back story both with the police and before as a child really fleshes out the character and adds a lot of nuance. Her firm morality and need to protect, her fierce independence and resentment of any kind of interference or even team effort. She’s a really well realised and well developed character.

The story itself was fairly moderate – it’s not much of a mystery or investigation but it’s more about Johann and Megan than anything else. It works, it keeps the pacing enough not to be boring and not to completely fall down the romance trap and the ending keeps the epic forces of the world well established with a high sense of both the consequences of failure as well as the power of the various actors. I definitely want to see more from the various Ancients that populate the world and what each of them are up to.

Review: The Reluctant Amazon by Sandy James

 Rebecca is a sensible woman, a teacher and she’s about to get married. Or was, anyway, until her husband got cold feet at the altar and a strange Scotsman showed up in the humiliating aftermath to whisk her away to a new life.

With barely time to adapt, Rebecca finds that she’s an Amazon, empowered by the Amazon’s patron goddesses with the power of Earth and chosen to defend the world against various supernatural threats. More urgently, she also learns she has been tapped because the last generation of Amazons has gone missing – or died.

Rebecca must struggle to learn the fighting skills that are essential to her role – but quickly finds she is not as physically adept as her sisters nor as fast a learner. But with Amazons to find and the undead to fight, she doesn’t have time to learn slowly.

And even that is complicated by her teacher, Artair the sentinel, who is compelling to her in ways that go beyond being  teacher.

There was a lot of really excellent potential in this book. Yes, 4 warriors dedicated to the 4 elements has been done before, but there was a lot of unique twists to it, with each elements having powers above and beyond what you’d expect. The idea of demigods being evil beings who have the ambition to rise to become gods no matter what is intriguing as well as the various monsters and spirits that serve them and the gods who oppose them

It’s well written as well. The pacing is tight and regular, keeping the plot moving and not dwelling or getting bogged down anywhere but nor did it rush through things and leave it vague or hurried. The world building balance was also excellent. Often with a supernatural setting it is far too tempting to dump all of this wonderful world you’ve created onto the page whether the reader needs to know or not – and it really bogs down a story. This only ever gave us the knowledge we needed to understand the story, explaining what was necessary and leaving the rest as intriguing clues. But, despite that, the world building felt sparse.

The world building felt sparse because it gave us just enough to understand without giving us irrelevant information. Sound like a contradiction? Well, the amazons have these powers, the gods these roles and this presence, but we didn’t get a story about them. We got a story about Becca and Artair falling in love. About Becca worrying she wasn’t becoming a good warrior fast enough. About Artair thinking Becca was sexy but wanting to quit as Sentinel. Of Becca thinking Artair is sexy and wishing he wouldn’t go.

In other words, there’s this wonderful world and wonderful pacing and an admirable restraint against drowning us in unnecessary information, and it isn’t really used.

I also admit to being a mythology geek, so when I saw “Amazon” I was excited. I could see these powerful, strong, independent warrior women facing down their enemies with brutal power.

I did not expect Artair’s Angels. Harsh? Perhaps, and part of that could be due to my expectations when the word “Amazon” is raised – but I don’t expect a book about Amazons to include a man who is their leader, their trainer, their drill sergeant, paternal figure, probably their best fighter, their general and battle leader or the main love interest in the story. I would have thought at least some of these roles would be filled by women.