Reviewed by: Taylor
TITLE: Powerless
SERIES: The Border Wars #3
AUTHOR: S.A. McAuley
LENGTH: 185 pages
PUBLISHER: Totally Bound
BLURB:
He was built to be invincible.
Merq and Armise return to the States after their mission to assassinate the remaining Committee members only to find the leadership of the Revolution isn’t as stable as they thought.
Outside forces come crashing down on a Revolution stronghold, leaving two of their soldiers gravely wounded. Merq’s history with his brothers-in-arms Simion and Neveed forces him into making decisions that will impact his future with the Revolution.
Merq has always identified as a soldier first. Always known who deserved his loyalty and who didn’t. But with the uncertainty surrounding the leadership of the Revolution, the mysterious disappearance of the jacquerie and increased activity with the PsychHAgs, Merq knows there are few people he can trust.
The only man Merq wants or needs at his side is Armise Darcan. But his reliance on his former enemy may be a miscalculation that threatens everything Merq stands for.
REVIEW:
I’ve been saying since I first read this series that it felt very Special Forces to me, but in this one I started seeing comparisons to another series and a lot of what I loved in the last book really began to frustrate me in this one.
Basically this is an overly complicated story of two alpha super fighters on opposing sides of the Borders War. Broken, genetically altered enemies to lovers. Throughout the series both men have been very hesitant in what they reveal to each other and even the reader is mostly in the dark. It works sometimes, but overall as the series continues, it makes me feel like I’m reading about cardboard characters. There are some really good and emotional moments there with betrayal, confusion, feeling abandoned and wanting to accept love. They should have gutted me. I should have been punching the air with “yes!” but the whole thing left me a bit cold or so what? These characters remind me very much of Special Forces, like I’ve said, but in this one I felt like I was reading a bit of In the Company of Shadows well…shadow. Little glimmers of those more finally drawn characters.
I think this author has a lot of great ideas. I think she builds the world well, writes well, and can cast a set of characters that I’m interested in. However, it’s like threads are started but just underdeveloped. Also I like to explain my feelings on this book series to my personal interest in television series. So for me, something like Game of Thrones vs Breaking Bad is an easssssssy decision. I’ll take Breaking Bad every time. Why? Because I’m more interesting in character driven stories; I love character arcs over an extended time and ensemble type shows, or books, don’t draw me in as much. The problem with this book, and series, for me is I can’t really tell what the author is going for and I keep feeling torn. I think Merq and Armise’s relationship is the core of this series and the decisions they make will affect everyone. Armise has numerous secrets; everything he does is supposedly only for Merq, but SO MUCH of them and their growth gets buried with all the other stuff going on. It’s starting to feel more about ALL of the characters fighting against something and that’s the most important item to the books. That’s fine if I wanted to read that kind of story, but seeing as I’m not interested in a Walking Dead-esque fight it’s starting to lose me. I want to read about how the war has damaged them both, how the war and the training and feelings of honor and duty and what’s right and wrong are changing and shaping them with each other.
I think moving forward I need to feel better connected to Armise and Merq. Until now, everything has been from Merq’s perspective and while that’s made sense so far, I’m hoping the series moves away from so much secrecy to more of Armise and Merq conquering forces together, more revealing moments between the two of them, and more emotional connection.
I would still recommend this series to many people, but it’s not something I’m *dying* for the next book.
RATING: 
BUY LINKS:
AMAZON