Series in Review: Fallen Angel and Eternity by Heather Terrell

Series are a tricky thing. I have series that I love as a whole, but an individual book within the series did not impress me.  So I am not always sure that reviewing the individual books is fair to the author's vision. However, I do not want to postpone all of my reviews of the books within a series until the end. With those thoughts in mind I decided to start Series In Review. In these postings, I will be looking at more than one book in the series or if possible the entire series at one time.
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**This review may contain spoilers for some of the books in the series**


Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy
Books Released in Series: Fallen Angel and Eternity

Author Info: Website | Goodreads
Rating: 3 Stars
Picked Fallen Angel in a Paperbackswap game and Bought Eternity.

In A Nutshell:
Fallen Angel captured my attention.  I was excited to continue the series, but Eternity kind of disappointed me.  The pacing seemed rushed, like it was a race to finish the story.  I was glad I read it, but I wanted more.

Review:
Ellie’s eyes fix on Michael almost from the first moment she sees him at her school. She is drawn to him. She feels a connection to him that she has never felt to a boy in her high school. It is more than his good looks, but she cannot piece together what it is.

And as the series progresses, I started to wonder what the attraction was myself. In Ellie, Heather Terrell created a character that is intelligent, compassionate, and fights for what she wants and what she believes in. Michael does not seem to be her equal. Yes, he is more physically adept than Ellie, but he repeatedly falls for lies and deceit because he succumbs to the needs of his pride. I understand that he is young and that he has lessons to learn, but he does not seem to learn with each encounter. And by comparison, Ellie does seem to learn, grow, and change with her encounters. She seems far less likely to make the same mistake repeatedly.

I enjoyed reading both of the books in the series, but I felt like there was a little bit of a problem with the pacing within the series. Fallen Angel deals primarily with their discovery of their natures and then their fight with the first Dark Fallen they meet. Eternity deals with them continuing to learn about their abilities and then their encounters with all of the rest of the Dark Fallen. There is a lot of action packed into the end of Eternity, which is exciting but overwhelming. The pacing of the series up to that point does not really prepare the reader for to have everything resolved in such a quick manner.

Recommendations:
Fallen Angel was Heather Terrell's first young adult novel, and I would like to read some of her adult books.