Diamond Fire

This was pretty disappointing to me. That said, it did exceed my expectations. Despite my utter love for Ilona Andrews, my expectations were rock bottom because I just don't like YA ... and because I was disappointed at the change to MCs for the series. There's just so much left undone with Rogan and Nevada. We've barely begun exploring her powers. And Caesar and the evil cabal, that's Rogan and Nevada's arc, and it's left open. I dislike that so much more than I can even begin to express. I hate that the arc will likely be wrapped up by her sisters, because it makes no sense that Rogan and Nevada would just drop out of that picture.

But as for this novella, it gets 2.5 stars from me.

Nevada was way out of character - this bridezilla nonsense was ridiculous. Nevada in her own trilogy was, above all, incredibly practical. She's uncomfortable with money, and particularly with Rogan's vast wealth. I just don't buy her suddenly becoming this monstrously picky asshole. I get her firing inept wedding planners - she doesn't tolerate nonsense, and so the first one belittling her and the second one lying to her, yeah, she's going to fire them. But the rest of it, silly.

Rogan was also out of character. This man is a control freak of the highest order, and here he's just meh about everything.

The family heirloom was stolen, the cake was poisoned, Kelly Waller - the family member who utterly fucked him - shows back up ... and he's not involved with any of it? Really? And that part - the bit with Kelly - just underscores how much the sisters solving the Caesar / cabal arc is going to piss me off.

I don't generally like the YA voice, and I read very little of it - only things that trusted friends have highly recommended. Because the general narrative voice is one that I despise - the young girl who is smarter, better, more entitled, oh-so-precious ... ugh. Now on a scale of 1-10, I'd give that voice a 5 in this book - she's not as annoying as she could be.

But like with most YA, the adults leave a child in charge of a serious situation and it just makes no sense to me. I buy her hunting for the tiara, because meh, petty theft, sure, put the kid on it. But when

the caterer's place is broken into and they discover that someone is trying to murder them all ... and even more, they discover that it's Kelly ... I'm sorry, no. There is no way I buy that Rogan and his team don't immediately take the lead on that. It is so inconsistent with their characters that I was angry.

Then, even worse, Nevada's power was undercut by Catalina discovering that hey, she could do what Nevada could do, but better (because of course it's better, that's always how YA is, they're so much better than everyone else and why can't people acknowledge their amazingness!!) She doesn't have to pry secrets out, people are happy to tell her! And they conveniently forget all about it afterwards! Gee whiz! I hate that shit. I hate undercutting your previous MC to set up the new primary, and it felt like that's entirely what this book did. Rather than building up Catalina, we had to make Nevada look bitchy and not-that-impressively-powered

especially with Catalina spontaneously developing some kind of mind-reading talent during the swordfight because apparently she isn't Mary Sue enough)

, while Rogan is inept and careless. Really?

Overall, I'm just sad because this series was one of my utter favorites, and now I have no enthusiasm for the next trilogy at all. And I'm sad because that seems to be the case with both of my favorite IA series (because no, I don't want to read about Julie in the KD world ... I find her to be utterly horrid). I don't know that I'll continue onward in either series.

*sigh*

The biggest conflict in this book is Catalina VS herself, which is exactly the kind of drama I love.