Crescendo - Becca Fitzpatrick

Author: Becca Fitzpatrick

Length: 427 pages

Release Date: October 19 2010

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Blurb

Nora Grey’s life is far from perfect. Whilst surviving an attempt on her life was unpleasant, she got a guardian angel out of it; a mysterious, gorgeous guardian angel who, despite his role in her life, is acting less than angelic, spending more time with Marcie Millar, Nora’s arch enemy.

Had Patch not been acting so elusive, Nora never would have noticed Scott, who, despite his totally infuriating attitude Nora finds herself drawn to – despite the lingering feeling he is hiding something.

Haunted by images of her murdered father, Nora puts herself in increasingly dangerous situations as she searches for answers. But maybe something’s are better left buried because the truth could destroy everything – and everyone – Nora trusts.

Review

Sequels to books, just like in cinema, can go either way. Some authors pull it off with the grace and style expected of them, seamlessly knitting together the narrative of the two books whilst constructing new and interesting story arcs behind the scene. Others fail in their pursuit; they run out of ideas and hash together anything that comes to mind until it sounds half decent and is of length. Fitzpatrick seemed to strike the middle of the road on this one; Crescendo is never going to be my favourite book as they were a few factors I did not like, but I really enjoyed it in other ways.

Let’s get the things I didn’t like over with first; the blurb, strangely enough, is one of them. The blurb to Crescendo describes Scott as ‘hiding something’ and that Nora is ‘drawn to him’. Isn’t that exactly how Patch was in Crescendo’s far superior predecessor? Didn’t Patch have a ‘totally infuriating attitude’? It really seemed on perusing the dust jacket that Fitzpatrick had run low on ideas and had simply recycled old ones. Another malfunction to the plot was the severe change in Nora’s personality, and the chemistry between her and Patch. In Hush, Hush, Nora and Patch had a relationship built on lust and danger, making it all the more exciting as other romances books of the time simply had the protagonist and love interest declared true lovers from the off; in Crescendo this appears to change. Nora’s declaration of love made this book a fallen angel itself; its wings were clipped with three small words, and Nora’s constant insistence that she was going to move on whilst forever mooning over him and declaring how the ‘pain of their spilt cut deep’ was rigid and annoying.

However, it wasn’t all doom and gloom for the second book in the series; the plot itself was very different from how the blurb described it, steadily paced with all the mysteries and shadows that made Hush, Hush so exciting. Twists and turns were plentiful in amongst all of Nora’s superfluous angst, with the characters we thought we knew at first taking a dark turn as Nora digs deeper into her Nephilim bloodline. The characters of Marcie Millar and Rixon were also developed, both becoming big players in the dangerous game Nora and Patch face in a subtle and powerful way that was a pleasure to read; Fitzpatrick really knew how to cast doubts on what we thought we thought we already knew.

The denouement of Crescendo was fantastic, with all loose ends of the plot wrapped up succinctly and in a way that dovetails into the third book in an exciting and slightly cruel way; how can Fitzpatrick expect us to wait with that kind of ending? The final few pages of this book really do make up for the flaws within the novel and once the last page has been read, the alterations to Nora’s personality have vanished, leaving the strong and pragmatic heroine we knew back at centre stage,

Overall, Crescendo was a book I just couldn’t put my finger on; everything worked out well by the end, the writing was good and the plot wrapped up in a satisfying manner, but there was a lingering sour taste at the end of it all. All I can do is hope that the next book in the series, Silence, maintains a likeable heroine and the talent was know Becca Fitzpatrick is capable of, or I’ll be left wondering whether this series peaked at the start; only time shall tell.

Dusty :]