Heartrender (Book Review) by V. Romas Burton

Thank you so much to Monster Ivy Publishing for the ARC of Heartrender! This was one of my most anticipated reads of the year and I was so beyond thrilled to receive an ARC box in exchange for a feature and honest review!

Due to the nature of this being a review for the conclusion of a trilogy, I am going to try really hard to avoid spoilers but a series spoiler may be inevitable. What I would say is that if you read the first two books definitely read the third.  If you are seeking YA appropriate epic fantasy or allegorical fiction , clean content, this is definitely a good series for you ❤

Review of book 1: https://onereadingnurse.com/2020/12/14/book-review-heartmender-by-v-romas-burton/

Review of book 2: https://onereadingnurse.com/2021/06/30/heartbreaker-by-v-romas-burton-book-review/

Bookish Quick Facts:

• Title: Heartrender
• Series: Heartmender #3
• Author: V. Romas Burton
• Publisher & Release: Monster Ivy Publishing, 09/07/21
• Length: 388
• Rate & Recommend : 🌟🌟🌟 yes because at this point you probably read the first two books! This is a lovely series

Here is the synopsis:

Eman is gone. Silas is gone. Claire is gone.

When Addie returns to Ramni after her devastating encounter with Ophidian, she finds her heart broken from her recent losses. Yet, even though she is grieving, Addie continues her journey through the Twelve Lands of Decim to unite the Twelve Magisters. With the aid of Romen and Lyle, she travels to each Northern Land to find that Ophidian is no longer harvesting Decim’s hearts, but their souls. With this new power, Ophidian will be almost impossible to defeat.

Will Addie be able to complete her promise to Eman before darkness rules?

I think this was a satisfying conclusion to the trilogy, although unfortunately by far the weakest of the three books in my mind.

One of my favorite parts was the character arcs, especially Addie finally trusting in Eman and the others enough to ask for help. The boys completely stole the show in this one though. Seeing Silas’ history put a lot of the rest of the series into context and it was the most interesting to me. His trials provided a lot of necessary background to understand various character’s actions and also explained the whole Rexus thing.

Lyle just took control of everything with his newfound powers and I think he’s going to make a great Elder.  It was also great to see Claire get some validation.  Addie’s ending bugged me a little bit, I kind of feel like she should be a magister or something too but it looks like she’s going to be relegated to… Well… Yeah no spoilers 😂

A lot of the imagery, especially in Silas’  chapters, was excellent again in this book. The castle in the tree and the imagery of the Elders was very well done.

Something about the allegory has been bugging me though. The resurrection is a tricky thing to represent and I feel like where the allegory was broader before, the author just tried to get too specific here and missed.  Then again it is entirely possible that I could just be missing something. Not to say it’s not still a good read though. Jeff Wheeler did something similar at the end of a few of his trilogies where he just seems to get lost in his Theology.

I know that I’ve talked about the pacing of certain events in the prior two books, and the absolute frantic pace of the ending confused me here as well. I would have read a longer book to find out more about the missing magisters and Romen’s role, the time travelling, and a few other things.  Characters were popping in and out all over the place in the second half of this book in order to get everything ready for the conclusion, and it was just happening so quickly that I got confused.

This is a lovely series though and I would totally recommend this to anyone seeking light fantasy, clean content, allegorical fiction / fantasy!
❤❤❤