Review: The Problem with Promises by Leigh Evans

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“I felt like Evans has finally hit her stride.” ~ Under the Covers

If you’ve been following my reviews for this series, Mystwalker, you know that I enjoy it quite a bit. Paranormal and urban fantasy are definitely among my favorite genres, and Leigh Evans has created a fantastical world with a pretty kick-ass heroine coming into her own, a sexy alpha, and an excellent supporting cast.

All that said, I have to admit that I had a hard time getting into The Problem with Promises. I don’t know if I was just not in the right frame of mind, but I found myself struggling to get through the first third of the book. Some of it was also that I had forgotten details from the previous books, since I read each one almost a year apart, and I had a difficult time trying to remember those minor details and characters that would have been helpful in keeping me interested in the start of the book.

Evans begins The Problem with Promises right where The Thing About Weres left off. Hedi has sent her brother back to Merenwyn, and now she has to figure out how to save him, get rid of the Black Mage, and protect the Earth realm from any bad Fae ju ju that might leak from Merenwyn. But before Hedi and her One True Thing can make solid plans about how to do that, they are once again thrown into Were politics and find themselves on the run, on the hunt, hunted, and trying to survive.

Once the book hit almost halfway and lingering questions were getting answered, I found myself hooked. I wanted to find out what was going to happen next, and how were Hedi, Trowbridge, and their loved ones going to make it to see one more day. I felt like Evans has finally hit her stride. I have always said, even from book #1, that Evans writes very well. She is imaginative, I like her style and her prose, and I love the world she’s created. Hedi is not “super heroine” from the start, and while that is endearing to me – I love to see character growth and imperfections – she also was repetitive (and a tad annoying) in her “whoa is me” ways. At least she had been in books #1 and 2. But in Promises, she finally took the bull by the horns, stopped questioning herself as much as she had done previously, and did what she needed to do to protect herself and those who have become her “hers.”

I enjoyed watching Hedi’s growth and transformation take place page by page. She truly is coming into her own. I love that we still see her conflicting selves – her fae and her inner-bitch – but that she is finally starting to accept who she truly is and allowing both sides to shine when they need to. I do wish we had more page time with her and Trowbridge together, however. I really like them as a couple, but feel like their lack of page time makes it hard for the reader to connect to them and their relationship like readers generally do with the main characters in a book. I hope that the next and final book will make up for some of that loss. There are still a lot of loose ends to resolve in the 4th and final book, but I do look forward to reading it and hopefully see it all pulled together.

*ARC provided by publisher