The Hidden by Jessica Verday

Book:  The Hidden

Author:  Jessica Verday

Publisher:  Simon Pulse

Date:  September 6, 2011

My grade:  A-

A love that knows no bounds.

Abbey knows that Caspian is her destiny. Theirs is a bond that transcends even death. But as Abbey finally learns the full truth about the dark fate that links her to Caspian and ties them both to the town of Sleepy Hollow, she suddenly has some very hard choices to make. Caspian may be the love of her life, but is that love worth dying for?

Beautifully spun, emotionally gripping, and irresistibly romantic, The Hidden will leave you breathless.

My Review

Maybe it’s because I LOVED the first two books in this series and I was desperately waiting to get my grubby little hands on this book, but I was actually a little disappointed in this book.

Now, don’t get me wrong.  I still enjoyed it and I liked the end a lot, with a few misgivings.  But it felt like this book could have been better.  Actually, it felt like this book was full of a lot of filler because the publishers wanted a 3^rd book instead of just 2 books.

This is really starting to annoy me, actually.  I think that after the success of Harry Potter, Twilight and The Hunger Games, publishers are starting to see dollar signs.  I think they are asking authors to drag out stories into 3 and 4 books when they could easily wrap up a story in 2 books or even 1.

This book had parts that seemed to drag along and serve no purpose really.  It could have been tightened up a lot.  There were parts where I found myself easily distracted away from the book.

However, as the book started getting closer to the climax and denouement, it did tighten up and I found myself flying through the book. I was actually pleased with the ending.  I kept wondering how on earth she would make this ending anything but tragic and she did a great job of making an ending that did not make me want to slit my wrists open but was totally and completely believable within the context of her world.

I was a little surprised at the sexual content of the book.  I’m no prude by a long shot and I wasn’t distressed about the fact that characters had sex.  I was, however, a bit shocked at the amount of, well, sexual relations that the characters engaged in during a 24 hour period.  Now, there was nothing graphic here and it was not like a “bodice-ripper” novel.  If only I had been able to get this many details from Stephenie Meyer!  (I’m still disappointed that there was no drawn-out description of naked Edward Cullen!  Sigh!)  It was very nicely written and described, but trust me when I tell you that this fade to black did not stop as early as the infamous fade to black in Breaking Dawn!

All in all, however, I closed the book (well, turned off my Nook, really) with a nice sense of satisfaction about how the book ended.  I love this little world in Sleepy Hollow that Jessica Verday has created.  I would like to go visit there myself now, and Abbey’s perfume making hobby had me searching out supplies on Google to make my own perfumes as well!

My grade for this book is an A-.  I played around with a B+ because I did find that there was some dragging out of scenes and a little too much description at times.  However, I think that readers who have enjoyed this series will still be satisfied with this book, even if they find themselves skimming through part of it.  Oh, and Edward may still be my favorite fictional boyfriend, but Caspian is certainly at the top of my ghost boyfriend list!