Amanda Shofner

There is a definite love triangle going on here between Jolie, Rand, and Sinjin. I hate love triangles because I’m a one-man woman, and I always know exactly who I want. And I want Jolie to hook up with Rand. It was this dislike of love triangles that made me frustrated and caused me to set down the book for a while, because Sinjin plays quite a prominent role. It is a necessary role, I suppose, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. We also got to learn a little bit more about why Rand and Sinjin hate each other so much, and it’s not just because of Jolie. There is something more there, and I can almost bet that there is more to be resolved in future books.Once I picked the book back up, I promptly got sucked back in again – sometimes you just have to be in a certain mood, I suppose – and I was back to choosing reading over watching TV even though a few hours earlier I couldn’t wait to watch TV over reading. Gosh, am I fickle. So, Jolie is very determined to kill Ryder, and does everything she can to ensure that she makes it to battle to do so. What she doesn’t anticipate is getting knocked out of her time period. I didn’t anticipate this either, but all the pieces of the puzzle started falling into place for me here. I had a guess what everything might mean (is this vague enough so I don’t give anything away?) and I had to race ahead to figure out if I was right. I was, but it only made me like the book even more. The realization that Jolie hits upon while visiting the past has ramifications for everything we have previously thought about some of our characters. HP Mallory is a far better story teller than it may first appear (and honestly, pretty darn awesome was my first impression).I warily watched the progress bar at the bottom of my Kindle toward the end. There was a lot that needed to happen before it ended, and I was raring to get through it. I may have unwittingly sped through a few scenes… But like the first book, I didn’t want this to end, and there’s quite a bomb at the end. A fun one. I am not looking forward to waiting to read the next installment, though. I want it now.See my review in its entirety here: http://onabookbender.com/2011/05/24/review-toil-and-trouble-by-hp-mallory/