_JPG.jpg)
Review of "Jill" (Three J'Amigos, #3) by Rose Montague
Jill, Book 3 in the Three J’amigos book series by Rose Montague – Now... anyone who has read any of my reviews of Montague's first two installments of this series or her Norma Jean’s School of Witchery know I adore these books and characters as well as Montague’s writing style. I did enjoy Jill, but why, you might ask, did I only give it three stars. I will get to that momentarily. But first, the story: Jade and Jane are finally going to get some real time together after seeing an end to the devil himself and clearing their names, all of which could not have been possible without their third J’amigos Jill, who by the way is the Winter Queen of Faerie. We join the story with Jane waiting for Jade to return from Faerie. Being bonded by blood and vampire marriage Jane knows something is wrong and while a vampire cannot cross the veils into Faerie somehow she is transported by both love and her magical wedding ring to Faerie where she finds that Jade and the Queen’s Blade have been chasing Jill and her abductors trying to get her back. What they find is that Jill has been exiled to a place from which there is no escape, a place full of dark creatures as well as the dangerous people who control this realm. Jane is forced to turn a dying ally, who is also a faerie, into a vampire to save his life so that he can help save Jill, but her creation is dangerous and powerful more so than even herself. This newly created vampire aspect of the story was not explored as much as it seemed like the story was leading up to. Jade and Jane at this point have to split up, with Jane and the Queen’s Blade going to the place with no escape. Jade on the other hand is tasked with going after the man had Jill abducted and who is trying to take over the Winter Court. She is additionally tasked with looking for a possible way back from the hell that holds Jill, Jane, and the Queens Blade captive. The world Jill is exiled to has no magic and any magic that is had by a person even the Winter Queen of Faerie is consumed and not replenished. She runs for her life and is finally met by Jane and the Queen’s Blade. Danger hides behind every corner in this world, but the three of them work tirelessly together to stay safe. Jade and Jane can communicate thanks to their magical wedding rings, but the dynamic of them together was lost in this book. Together they were fun, sexy, dangerous, and action pact and this was one of the things that was lost for me with them being apart almost the entire book. Jill, of course, was a fun part of that Dynamic in books one and two, but not to the same extent that Jade and Jane’s characters were. This could have been overlooked if the story had been more developed. While I loved the switching of perspective from one character to another it left a lot unsaid and the story felt clipped. What I mean is that if felt like the first 50% to 60% of the book was going at a great pace and developing nicely and then it just ends all neatly tied up and happy but all too quickly, not enough build and less than what I have come to expect from Montague. That said, I still admire her writing style and strong female characters kicking butt and taking names, but the ending felt abrupt and less focused. I hated to give the book 3 stars but I was disappointed. I still liked it just not as much as her other stories. I am eagerly awaiting the third book in the Norma Jean’s School of Witchery series, which shows I am still on the Rose Montague train.
