Book Review: Emerald Green

So this was  really delayed... I actually finished this a while ago. Either way, I have no regrets. Lets do this!

The blurb:

Gwen has a destiny to fulfill, but no one will tell her what it is.
She’s only recently learned that she is the Ruby, the final member of the time-traveling Circle of Twelve, and since then nothing has been going right. She suspects the founder of the Circle, Count Saint-German, is up to something nefarious, but nobody will believe her. And she’s just learned that her charming time-traveling partner, Gideon, has probably been using her all along.
This stunning conclusion picks up where Sapphire Blue left off, reaching new heights of intrigue and romance as Gwen finally uncovers the secrets of the time-traveling society and learns her fate.

Before I begin, this is the final book in a series and may spoil events in the previous books. You have been warned!

Let's start with the characters. As usual, I'll start with Gwen, seeing as she's our lead. To be completely honest, I was quite infuriated with her for the first half of the novel. Not only was she extremely angry with Gideon after the events of the previous book, but she spent a good chunk pining over him. The second half I was getting quite annoyed with how quickly she managed to drop her anger and skip off into the sunset with him.

Gideon... If you can remember, I was irritated with him in the last book--not a fan of hot-n-cold love interests. Luckily for him, it wasn't the case for this book. Now, unlucky for him is that I didn't go back to swooning over him. Instead, I felt quite indifferent to his apologies. We do get a glimpse at how he wants to be redeemed by Gwen but, like Leslie, I didn't trust him.

Now, I'm just going to lump the 'antagonists'--and I'll use that lightly--together. The events of the true antagonist, the Count, definitely shocked me--I was not expecting him to be in the series the whole time under the guise of Mr. Squirrel. Yet I feel that certain questions weren't answered, which was rater disappointing. As for Charlotte, I truly felt bad for her and was a little disappointed that she decided it was acceptable to reveal secrets that she was trained from a young age to never reveal. Not only was her story sad but, like many reviewers have said before me, she seems like the stereotypical antagonistic girl. 

Lastly, secondary characters: Leslie, Xermerius and Raphael--the Montrose clan will be in the plot section. I'm truly happy for Leslie. I liked Raphael better than his brother. A LOT BETTER. And it drove me crazy knowing that Leslie had feelings for him yet didn't act because he was related to the 'enemy.' I felt that Xemerius' role seemed to diminish in this book in comparison to the previous book. I still liked his witty commentary.  

Plot! So remember above when I mentioned the Montrose clan would be on the plot? Yeah. This is pretty important to the plot: Gwen isn't just a Montrose. She's also a de Villiers. Her parents are actually Lucy Montrose and Paul de Villiers. She was adopted by her mother, Grace, before Paul and Lucy went back in time. To be honest, after I watched Rubinrot, I predicted it. So I wasn't completely shocked. Though I was concerned for the possible incest and didn't fully believe Gideon's "we're related but not really" speech. 

As for over all plot, I wasn't too disappointed yet, as mentioned above in the villain paragraph, I felt some questions were still unanswered--not that I can remember any of those questions right now anyway.

Regardless, three stars out of five for shocking conclusions, lovable characters and unanswered questions.