Me on Flame

Title: Flame
Author: Amy Kathleen Ryan
Release Date: January 7, 2014
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin (Macmillan imprint)

Waverly and the other members of the Empyrean have scattered, and their home ship has been destroyed. Their mission to rescue their parents didn't go as planned, and now they're at an even greater disadvantage: trapped with their enemies on the New Horizon, trying to find a way to survive. Kieran has been pulled under Anne Mather’s wing, but is she really trying to make peace, or just using Kieran to build her own power? Meanwhile, Waverly is taken in by a mysterious old man who wants to help her bring Anne Mather down, but the more Waverly cooperates with him, the more dangerous her position is, and the more at odds with Kieran she becomes. Seth's situation is even worse. After setting out from the Empyrean on his own, with only a vague strategy to guide him, he is a fugitive aboard the New Horizon. He's doing what he can to challenge the power of Anne Mather, but he's badly hurt, and getting sicker. Will Seth ever see Waverly again? Will his health hold out long enough to help her topple their enemies? And will Waverly find a way to unite with her friends before they all fall? Nothing is sure and every moment is a risk

Flame is a tense and dangerous conclusion to a series about survival, faith, power and hope. It's a cautionary tale about a future that could be, given the right circumstances and technological advances, a future bleak and harsh where the prize at the end is gained through struggle and personal sacrifice.

Waverly, Kieran, and Seth are all still alive, and they're still fighting back against Anne Mather and her followers who first kidnapped the young girls from the Empyrean then crippled the ship, leaving those on-board to die. Now, on board the New Horizon, they're all fighting back in their own ways. All three have their own problems, their own goals, their own obstacles. They're forced to fight alone, relying on liars and murderers in order to survive, and at any moment things could go the wrong way for them.

I discovered I'd reached a limit with the self-righteousness of Anne Mather, and I thought I'd reached a limit after the first book. In my own opinion, this woman has lost her mind. She's let power go to her head, she's used scripture to her advantage to manipulate the crew of her own ship. She needs to be in control, everyone has to do things her way, all in the name of survival. But she's taken it beyond survival, she's caused too much pain and suffering for me to believe she ever had anything close to good intentions.

I found this series to be tense, dangerous, and rather painful for almost all the characters but especially for Waverly, Seth, and Kieran. Around the halfway mark I found myself wanting the book to end sooner than it did. Just about anything that could happen did happen to these three, they were constantly pushed to their limits, thrown to the ground and dragged along. I was tired of them not being happy or safe, tired of the strain and the pressure of saving the others weighting down on their shoulders. For a third book in a trilogy, it certainly did it's job. The tension was always high, as in the previous books. The stakes were high, no one still knew who they could trust, and the suspense stuck around right until the end. I found it to be a good ending, a proper ending, and hopefully fans of the series will be satisfied at the en of this journey.

(I received an e-galley of this title to review from Macmillan through Raincoast Books.)