Review: If I Should Die (Revenants, #3)

Author: Amy Plum
Series: Revenants, #3
Release date: May 1st 2013
Publisher: Atom
Paperback, 408 pages
Source: Publisher for review
Buy: The Book Depository

An enthralling and unique paranormal romance, Amy Plum's DIE FOR ME series introduces a new version of the undead with revenants, beings who are fated to sacrifice themselves over and over again to save others' lives.

I will not lose another person I love. I will not let history repeat itself.

Vincent waited lifetimes to find me, but in an instant our future together was shattered. He was betrayed by someone we both called a friend, and I lost him. Now our enemy is determined to rule over France s immortals, and willing to wage a war to get what they want.

It shouldn t be possible, none of it should be, but this is my reality. I know Vincent is somewhere out there, I know he s not completely gone, and I will do anything to save him.

After what we ve already fought to achieve, a life without Vincent is unimaginable. He once swore to avoid dying - to go against his nature and forsake sacrificing himself for others - so that we could be together. How can I not risk everything to bring my love back to me?

As someone who’s been a pretty big fan of this series from the day Die for Me came out, I had very mixed feelings about this final installment. I’ve spent a lot of time wondering about Kate and Vincent’s fate, and even after a whole year of living with that awful cliffhanger in mind, a part of me was reluctant to have it resolved and let them go – not because I doubted their happily ever after, but because they are so very dear to me.

Although things turned out exactly as I thought they would in the end, there were a few surprises along the way. The story took some pretty unexpected twists and turns and several secondary characters like Kate’s Papy Mercier were given a more important role in the central part of the story. The middle is almost always my least favorite part of a story, but Plum used her excellent sense of pacing and a very interesting ancient ritual to make this middle part riveting.

My only disappointment was the entire situation with Jules. When the intensity of his feelings was brought to light in Die for Her, a Harper Impulse novella, I assumed it would somehow become essential to the story. I can’t say I was looking forward to it since the whole thing promised a world of angst, but I didn’t want it to be neatly swept under the rug either, which is exactly what happened in the end. I dislike storylines that lead absolutely nowhere, and I felt that this one accomplished nothing at all.

Aside from that little setback, If I Should Die gave me everything I’d hoped for. The focus wasn’t on Kate and Vincent alone, but on all the revenants, and as Amy carefully announced on her Facebook page, not everyone got their happily ever after. Some stories ended gloriously, and some brought me to tears.

The final battle of good and evil went down in a very Harry Potter-like fashion, with the Champion (who shall not be named) and the leader of the numa (who shall not be named) fighting surrounded by both their armies. After all the troubles the numa have caused, seeing the bardia united in their effort to conquer evil brought tears to my eyes. It was a very intense scene with a lot of things happening at once – I was shocked when I realized it all happened in no more than 15 pages.

There aren’t many trilogies of the paranormal romance-ish variety I really enjoy, but my whole heart was invested in this one from start to finish, and a huge part of me hates that it’s over, but I am happy with how it all turned out.