Silence - Becca Fitzpatrick

This is the third book in the Hush Hush series by Becca Fitzpatrick and I’ve been anticipating this to come out for months. It picks up right after the big cliff-hanger at the end of book 2. After she’s gone missing for 3 months, Nora finds herself back in Coldwater. She has no recollection of what has happened to her in the last five months. As she slowly gets back to her normal life, clues from her past starts to resurface which she cannot understand. Before she can figure this all out, she finds herself in the middle of a war between fallen angels and nephilim and her enemy is closer than she expects.

Before giving my opinion, I have some friendly reminder to fellow readers. First of all, it will definitely help to read the first two books before reading this to fresh your memory. Secondly, for those Patch/Jev fans, you have to be patient as Patch-Nora interaction does not appear until about Chapter 10-11(about 1/3) of the book.

It was an incredible read with a lot happening and it did not fail in capturing my attention all the way through. At the end of book 2, we find out who the “Black Hand” is and you may suspect if Becca would literally continue with the incident at the shed but you get something different, putting a lot of suspense in the story. Personally, I have to admit I was quite frustrated when reading the first few chapters with Nora having no idea what’s going on due to her amnesia. It felt like the characters are being put into an alternative reality and no one remembers Patch or Rixon. And through her childhood friend Scott, Nora finds out some of her past, along with her own work and instincts. This is the reason for my second reminder. You have to be patient and give the girl to work things out. However, after Nora meeting Jev again, the roller coaster ride begins and the pace of the story starts to pick up. We have a fair proportion of fallen angels and nephil encounters and it’s packed with lots of action.

By this book, I am sure all readers are very familiar with the powers of both fallen angels and nephil. I like the way the author develops further on the “invading dreams” ability, which we have not seen a lot so far. In book 2, we saw Patch using it to reveal the past to Nora but in this book, it becomes their main channel of communication. This book is also full of magical items mentioned in previous books such as the Black Hand ring, the archangel necklace. You can definitely see the similarity between the “Black Hand ring” and “the ring” in Lord of the Rings with both giving powers to the owner and also get him/her addicted. I also like the idea of the black feather from the angel’s wings.

As for characters, it’s good to see Scott taking a more central role in the story and it’s fun to have around. The only disappointment I have is with Vee. It feels like we see more Marcie than Vee in this book. While it’s good to see a different side of Marcie, I still prefer to see more of Vee. I enjoyed reading her conversations with Nora in previous books and there is not enough of their girly time together in this book. Let me move on to the main characters. As I have said, you need to be patient and you will be rewarded or even spoiled with quite a few good Nora-Patch moment, including an introduction to Patch’s studio- I am sure black silk sheets can be very comfortable!!! In this book they work more like a team and putting full trust into each other which is good. I also like the way the author makes use of the names Jev and Patch to show the status of their relationship-Jev represents not being together while Patch represent them being together.

Towards the end of the story with Patch explaining his deal with the archangels, the author takes us back to the events in the very first book. I have to say the writing and layout of the plot is very clever in this book and also for the whole series and Becca has again surprised me. The storylines from previous books are coming together nicely in this third instalment, like pieces of puzzle coming together in a picture. And hence it’s worth reading the previous books before starting with this one.

Nora is now pureblood Nephil and leader of the Nephil Blood Society which will cause a lot of tension between her and Patch. As a personal speculation for the next and last book in the series, I would not be too surprised if Scott takes up the role of second-in-command for Nora or some sort. On the other hand, we have seen fallen angels and nephilim and the missing variable now is the archangels. I can’t wait for the next book to come out!!