Demon Trappers (3) - Forgiven by Jana Oliver
After Rileys biggest mistake... Book 3 of the Series! Forgiven (In German Höllenflüstern, in French not published). I read it in German where it contained 488 pages. Originally published in 2012.
Riley's life couldn't possibly be worse. Traced by the Demon Hunters, she finds out who raised her father and why, what she has to do to save the world for Heaven and what she has to do to fulfil her debt with Hell. Additionally, everybody hates her (especially Simon and Beck) and necros begin to raise dead demons... Not to mention the organisation faking holy water... or her former lover reaching out to take her soul...
This book was pretty cool. The characters were realistic and the story arch very interesting and tense. I'm especially a fan of how she managed this Beck feeling betrayed and Riley realising her mistakes thing. How they suspect the other and then, how it solves itself over time. I also like how they have things they share and memories made together before. The cookies. I'm sorry for her, though, at the end. Well, at least she now knows what she wants – and it's not bad for her. Finally! Riley really has grown through this. It's cool she lets her whole plan of fleeing drop at the prospect of Beck getting hurt. That's really noble.
Master Stewart and Peter are really great, as is the necro and Aiden. They're amazingly supportive. The Hunters are great, by the way. I think it's great they don't meet the expectations that were raised in the books before. Salvatore is actually very very nice.
Ozzy is quite something, isn't it? I like how he finally starts making sense. And even Master Harper goes down the road to nice-ness. One step, at least.
Simon's development got to round two. I like how Martha tells him how he totally screwed up.
And I think it's great that there are physical problems through Riley's stress. That's really original – not many books have that, usually the protagonists go through all of that with max. a few wounds through combat.
The show-down is really, really great. Especially how it ends. Not this “the good wins and all will be well” stuff, but far deeper.
A question remains: Why doesn't the pope bless whole tanks of water? Or the Mediterranean sea, or something like that? If his holy water is so strong against demons? And the one mistake in the book is, that Müller is German, so he should wear his wedding ring on his right hand. But that's not only peanuts, that's peanuts crumbled to dust.
Apart from that, everything's good!
I give this book a star for the ideas, the characters, the style, the content and the development last but not least, the show-down, witches, necros and Demon Hunters.