Visions of Chains by Regan Hastings
Series: Awakening #3
Published by Signet
Published on: June 5th, 2012
Genres: Urban Fantasy
Pages: 364
Format: Paperback
Source: Borrowed
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Every witch has a destined mate, an Eternal who will serve as her guardian and complete her powers. Once the first of the coven has awakened, the witches must race against time to join with their Eternals and protect the relics that will prevent the destruction of the world....
Deidre Sterling is tired of being used. Her mother, the President of the United States, uses her as a prop for the television cameras. And men only pursue her for political connections. Determined to stand for something, Deidre throws herself into causes like the fight for witches’ rights, but ends up stepping into the line of fire.
Finn has waited eight centuries for his mate—united they will be a powerful weapon. Unfortunately, she wants nothing to do with him. Even after gunfire awakens her powers and a kiss from him engulfs them in flames, she refuses to take the final step. But as the world burns and her duty becomes clear, she realizes that some passions are worth paying the ultimate price….
Visions of Chains gives us a vision of an America turned in upon itself to exterminate the witches. The First Amendment is in danger of being overthrown so as to prevent the naysayers and yeahsayers alike from forming opinions about the witch topic.
Over top of this political witch hunt, we have Deidre, the President’s daughter, discovering that she may just be one of the Chosen Ones (I have invented this title; just know she has incredible power). The Chosen Ones each have their consort, an Eternal, who has braved the test of time to hook up with the reincarnation of the Chosen One. So while Deidre has been cycling through bodies in Jerusalem, London, Montreal, and Baghdad, her Eternal, Finn has been waiting to Awaken her memories through interpersonal means.
While it may make some uncomfortable for me to lay into the third book without having endured the visions of the first or second, I think it is safe to say, using this one has a model, that any notion of tension and/or climax has completely escaped this world, except for the one that granted Finn and Deidre must act out to Awaken their powers.
Why, if Deidre does Awaken her powers (is that a spoiler?), does she continue to adore her mother? This question bothered me frequently. I kept waiting for the tide of memories to overpower Deidre and for her to forget how important her current incarnation is in the grand scheme of things, for if she did and should have, I feel the major conflict, that between trusting Finn or her mother, would absolutely collapse. Instead we are led to believe, quite contradictorily to all the Awakening propaganda we have heard, that Deidre would still believe this presidential mother could be trusted, even after several meetings tell her not to.
The setting, mostly a network of tunnels underneath Washington D.C., is admittedly pretty cool. But why, if Deidre is just so darned powerful, does she cavort around with the Witch Liberation Front, once again in total contradiction to the memory overlay we are led to believe she would be granted? I must have missed somewhere that the Awakening, a deep pool of hundreds of years of power and memory, would have no effect on those who were Awakened at all.
The primary conflict then that appears to exist at the level of the composition is between present day and eternity. How much should we care about this disaffected United States when we must also care about these reincarnating lovers? Of course, I am blowing my complaints out of proportion when the level of this disunity is hardly explored beyond the surface. I am withdrawing from this book because it is underdeveloped. Enough said.
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| Recommended: | If you want just the tip of the iceberg |
| Like this, like that: | The Nightkeepers series by Jessica Andersen and the Bound by Magick series by Lauren Dane |
Ooh you just helped me with my wishlist, this series was on it, but after reading your thoughts I think I will pass…too many awesome books and series out there…thank you!
Wow Josh, you really should kick that bad habit of starting in the middle of a series. I have this one on my wishlist, and I loved the Nightkeepers.