Yield the Night Review: Piper

Book: Yield the Night
Author: Annette Marie
Series: Steel & Stone #3
Genre: YA fantasy
Pages: 278
Published: March 27th 2015

After surviving a round-trip to hell, Piper figures she can survive anything. After all, she just lived through the devastating loss of her Consul apprenticeship and a torturous stint at boarding school. How much worse could it get?

Well, she wasn’t expecting a group of crazy radicals to burn her home to the ground and take her prisoner.

The Gaians, a.k.a. the crazy radicals, plan to rid Earth of daemons and they need Piper’s help. In exchange for her cooperation, they promise her the answer to all her problems: magic. With her own magic, she could reclaim her apprenticeship, the only future she’s ever wanted. But her magic comes at price — it could kill her.

With the life she’s always known crumbling around her and her future slipping from her grasp, she needs Ash’s help one more time. But the greatest danger of all lies within her, and no matter what she does, she may lose everything — including him.

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Another amazing instalment!

This novel picks up 8 weeks after the ending to Bind the Soul. Piper has returned home, but only to have it attacked, burned to the ground, and herself taken prisoner all in 24 hours. What's worse is that they people who did it--the Gaians--want to recruit her, and to unlock the magic hidden in her. Though it will enable Piper to finally re-establish her revoked apprenticeship, her sealed magic is the only thing keeping her alive...

You'd honestly think Piper would get a break from danger and bloodlust after everything she's been through, but you'd be wrong. Though her troubles weren't based on trying to clear her name or save Ash like the other books, her drive was no less desperate. Piper's general fear of death and determination to survive really made her a force to be reckoned with. However, Piper's role did go a bit back to basics, with her being the weak link among a party of daemons. But Piper held her own up. She may not be as strong as everyone else, but she certainly was no less badass.

And then we have Ash, broody and protective and absolutely swoon worthy. He had me sighing dreamily on numerous occasions, from his overprotective nature to his tender moments. It's no secret that I fell for him hard in the last books, but I'm realizing that I don't think I'll ever stop falling. It's impossible. The romance in this book is again only teasing, as if the author is dangling it in front of our faces. By the end, I'm fully aware that there will be quite a lot of angst in the next book, but I'm desperately hoping everything will work out, because it's obvious both Piper and Ash are a lot more than merely attracted to each other, and are both sacrificing a lot, including themselves, for the other.

The one character that grated on my nerves was Seiya. I feel like that probably was the point, for her to introduce romantic tension between Ash and Piper. It is bluntly clear from the beginning that Seiya does not approve of Piper's relationship with her brother. After being released from Samael's prison, of course she would want nothing more than to ensure she and Ash keep their freedom by staying out of danger or trouble, or any general way for Samael to find them. So it's natural she would see Piper as a threat, since Samael still sees Piper as a threat, and where Piper goes, Ash isn't too far behind. But just because I understood where Seiya was coming from doesn't mean I liked her methods. I like her for loving her brother so fiercely, but I dislike her for being the obstacle I know she needs to be between Piper and Ash. Sigh.

Much like the others books, the plot was completely unpredictable. New elements were introduced at the times you least expected them, and the direction of the plot shifted endlessly. There literally is no way of knowing what the outcome of the book is beforehand; it's not a book where you can skip a few chapters (shame on you if you do) and still know what's going on. It kept me utterly engrossed, reading for hours on end to find out what happens after revelation after revelation after dramatic event occurred over and over.

The ending to this was more devastating than any of the other books. Rather than an end to immediate conflict, we're only just stumbled on the beginning of something terrible. Questions are running through my mind, and I know the only wait to prevent myself from going mad is to get the next book in my hands as fast as I can!