SF/F Review: Buried Heart (Court of Fives #3) by Kate Elliott https://t.co/mfeMRQBHEe Short Review: 8 out of 10 (1/3)— garik16 (@garik16) February 16, 2018
Short Review (cont): The Conclusion of Elliott's YA trilogy features its protagonist Jessamy torn between the two sides of her heritage but finally making a choice for the fate of the whole country. Excellent Protagonists and pacing make this the best of the series. (2/3)— garik16 (@garik16) February 16, 2018
Buried Heart is the concluding novel in Kate Elliott's Court of Fives YA trilogy, and like the first two books in the series, I have a few mixed feelings about it. The good news is that it easily is the best of the trilogy, and pays off several of the mystery plot threads left over from the first two novels. Whereas I felt like the first book, Court of Fives, felt like Elliott was trying to hard to fit the YA format, she's clearly come into her own here by book 3h.
That said, it's still not one of my favorite works from Elliott - there's a lot of balls being juggled throughout this series and Elliott takes a very noticeable step to simplify them early, which was a little disappointing. Still, the book contains mostly excellent characters - after some ambivalence in book 1, I've kind of come to love series heroine Jess - and never drags, which is an improvement on the prior two books in the series.
More after the jump - Spoilers for the first two books are unavoidable:
------------------------------------------------Plot Summary-----------------------------------------------------
After the events of Poisoned Blade, Jessamy finds her loyalties more split than ever. Her mother and three of her sisters are in deep with the Efean underground along with the poet Ro, while her lover Kal seeks to obtain the support of her father in defeating his usurper cousin and restoring the Saro dynasty to which he is unwillingly heir. Kal says he can effect change in the land - even if he is forced to take up the throne - while Jessamy's mother and Ro argue that his dynasty is poisoned and the only way for change to come is through their downfall.
But there are other powers at work - Neither side of course can succeed while the usurper Nikonos joins forces with the foreign invaders of East Saro to take control of the country. And then there's the sinister Lord Gargaron, humiliated after the revelation that Jess had thwarted him last book, who even after having been displaced from his plans by Nikonos has additional plans for the kingdom...and nothing but hatred for Jess.
In the end, it will be up to Jess to finally make a choice as to where she stands, as all of Efea hangs in the balance - and she may have to give up on someone she loves in order to do what's right.
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My biggest issue with Court of Fives (book 1) was that I kind of was confused by Jess' bipolar moods - she would go from making big desperation plans to save her family to wanting to run the Fives from chapter to chapter, but by this point in the series, Jess has grown into a pretty incredible character. In another series, Jess would have embraced her Efean heritage and mother earlier - her sisters do in fact - but Court of Fives refuses to make it that easy on her, with her reminding and being reminded by others that she is half-Patron in addition to half-Efean and she can not so easily cast aside either side of her identity.
The development of Kal, the love interest is also particularly interesting. Again, another book would turn him into a totally converted fair King, but that's not where Elliott takes him here and it's a lot more believable. And most of the side characters - including the greater focus on Jessamy's archivist sister Maraya - are excellent. Parts of the story are predictable, but most of it was not, and the story has a much faster pace than in the prior two books in the series.
The book also resolves probably the two biggest remaining mysteries in the series - the mystery of Jessamy's baby "brother" and the adversary "Talon" in generally satisfactory ways. So it manages to wrap up all remaining plot threads* but one pretty effectively.
*The missing plot thread from this book is what happened to Jess' sister Bettany. Her story is resolved in a novella Bright Thrones (which I also read after finishing this book, mind you).
That said, three things prevented this book and the series from reaching the truly great mark managed by Elliott's other works. First, secondary love interest Ro still really doesn't have any chemistry with Jess, making the scene where he inevitably makes his move on her just not work. Second, and this is related to the third, the book resolves the chaos created by the end of book 2 kind of anticlimactically and re-inserts book 1-2 bad guy Lord Gargaron into the picture in its place. It's kind of disappointing, especially because Lord Gargaron remains so blatantly evil as to be distracting. Why anyone trusts him at this point in the series (and two major characters do!) is just....i don't even know.
Still, The Court of Fives series is solid YA with a pretty great main character, even if it never truly achieves greatness due to the weakness in the series' main villain. It's worth a read if you're looking for a YA work.
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