Review: Forbidden (The Demon Trappers) by Jana Oliver

Riley's beginning to think being a demon trapper isn't all it's cracked up to be. Her dad's been stolen by a necromancer, her boyfriend's gone all weird and she's getting warm and fuzzy feelings for someone who's seriously bad news. It's tempting to give it all up and try to be normal, but that's not an option. Because the demons have plans for Riley. And they're not the only ones.


Firstly, I have to say that Forsaken, the first book in this series, was one of those books that despite the flaws, I loved completely, so when I receive Forbidden in the post, I think I may have squeed. A lot. Then I worried a little, wondering whether this book would be one that I would be adding to my 'Sequels that suck' pile.


Nope, I'm so adding this to my 'Sequels That Totally Improve The Whole Series' pile. Forbidden had the same action and mystery that Forsaken did, a love story, some twists and turns and a fantastic final page, my verdict? Amazing. This book grabbed me the same way that Forsaken did and didn't release me until I reached that very last page, in fact, it got me so absorbed that I was reading it at work...


One of the flaws that I found in the first book was the love triangle, this is cleared up by the end of this book, leaving only one likely candidate for Riley, (which makes me very happy, especially considering who it was). In Forsaken, I was so Team Simon, my allegiance shifted to Beck throughout this one, which meant that there were numerous times when I wanted to slap him across the face and call him a total idiot, Simon... oh my! He just turned totally psycho and Ori... well I never did trust him. I do like the way the relationships changed throughout Forbidden it made me like it a lot more.


Riley, as always, is the perfect protagonist. Feisty and strong-willed, she makes some pretty stupid decisions but I understood them, at times I felt that she got a little angsty and whiney, but this isn't often. I didn't support a lot of her actions but when they backfired I really felt sympathy for her.


My biggest issue with Forbidden is that, because the book is similar to other books in the same genre (I'm going to mention Devil's Kiss by Sarwat Chadda in particularaly), I expected some of the twists and turns, so the climactic, enlightening part near the end wasn't a big surprise to me, and this meant that it wasn't as exciting as it should have been for me.   


Overall, Forbidden was a great addition to the series, with all the action, romance and mystery as Forsaken plus some. I am so excited to read the next book in the series and commend Oliver on her amazing storytelling and ability to absorb me in such a fantastic story.

Overall rating: A

Stand alone/series: Second in the series. Preceded by Forsaken (review here)

UK Release: August 5th 2011

Publisher: Panmacmillan

Book obtained via: Received from the publisher in exchange for an honest review