Empower by Jessica Shirvington

Title: Empower (The Violet Eden Chapters #5)

Author: Jessica Shirvington

Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire

Release Date: May 6, 2014

Source: ARC from Publisher

Buy the Book: Amazon / Book Depository / Indigo

It has been two years since Violet Eden walked away from the city, her friends, her future and—most importantly—her soulmate, Lincoln. Part angel, part human, Violet is determined to stand by the promises she made to save the one she loves.

Living in the perpetual coldness of a broken soul she survives day to day as a Rogue Grigori in London.

But when an unexpected visitor shows up at her door, the news he bears about someone she swore to protect leaves Violet with no choice.

Even worse, she fears that this might all lead back to the night she tries hardest to forget. And what was taken without her permission.

Violet is going back to New York…and she knows exactly who is going to be there.

With Phoenix in her dreams and Lincoln in her heart she knows it is only a matter of time before the final choice must be made.

I feel like I say this in every review I write for books in this series, but I absolutely love Jessica Shirvington’s Violet Eden books. With each book, it feels like the story gets even better. But with Empower, I was a little nervous because it is the last book in the series. But I really shouldn’t have been worried, because Jessica Shirvington didn’t even come close to letting me down.

For the last two years, Violet has been on her own. After what happened with Lilith, she had to walk away from everything she’s ever known, from the people she cares about, from her soul mate. Violet knew that if she stayed behind, she would have to reconnect her soul with Lincoln’s. And if anything happens, she can’t handle her soul shattering a second time. But when someone from her past shows up at her door, Violet gets pulled back into the life she thought she had left behind. And before she knows it, Violet is facing everything and everyone she has worked so hard to put behind her. Now Violet has to race against time if she wants to save her friends and the world as they know. But can she do it with Phoenix and Lincoln around?

I apologize in advance if I’m not entirely coherent in this review because this book just gave me ALL THE FEELINGS. So now that I’ve apologized for the babbling that’s likely to come, here goes. After I finished reading Endless earlier this year, I was a little worried about what would be going down in Empower. That ending left me a little gutted. But as afraid as I was of Empower, I knew I had to read it because I just HAD TO KNOW how it would all end. So I started to read, and needless to say that it didn’t take all that long for me to get completely sucked in to the story. Empower was just what I had hoped. The story was filled with action and twists, just like I’ve come to expect from Jessica Shirvington. And there was also the romance that I’ve loved for the past four books. Though it was different this time around. For the better part of the book, I was growing increasingly frustrated with romance. Though at times it was more like a lack of romance. I just wanted Violet to get with the program and fix things with Lincoln. But she was just being the stubborn and headstrong Violet I love, so it’s not like I can really hold it against her when it comes down to it. All I will say about the story and the ending it that it left me completely and totally satisfied. I honestly couldn’t have asked for a better ending. It had me smiling and even tearing up. But don’t worry, those were totally happy tears, at least as far as the ending is concerned. Because there were totally some sad tears at other moments in the story.

I can only say so much about Violet, Lincoln, Phoenix, Spence and all the other people in this story before I start sounding like a broken record, but since this is the last book, I have lots of feelings I need to get out. Like I said earlier in this review, Violet is headstrong and stubborn and I love her for it. She’s the type of girl who doesn’t really let anything stand in her way and she just goes for it, even when it’s potentially suicidal. But the one thing she just wouldn’t go for in this book is Lincoln. And don’t even ask me to put how I feel about Lincoln into words because I just can’t. It’s just not possible. I have so much love for him and Empower has only made me love him that much more. For the first half of the story I was kinda annoyed with him, but then something happened (I can’t tell you what) and he just did a complete 180 and I loved him SO MUCH. So in case you missed it, I love Lincoln. Once again though, Phoenix is the one who took me by surprise. In my opinion, he had done a lot to redeem himself in Endless, and that definitely continued in Empower. And because of that, or other factors unknown to me at the moment, I started to love Phoenix in a whole new way. I’m not trying to excuse anything he’s done in the past, but he’s come a long way and in this book I felt his pain and I honestly wanted something good to finally happen to Phoenix because not only did he need it, but he also deserved it. My one disappointment with Empower is that there wasn’t more Spence. Over the course of these five books, Spence has become one of my favourite characters. Anytime he was around he kinda stole the show. And though he was an integral part of the story, there just wasn’t enough of him in Empower. So I’ll just be over here wishing for a spin-off all about Spence. Just think all the crazy situations he would get himself into.

In case it wasn’t obvious by all the rambling, I loved Empower. Jessica Shirvington wrote a fantastic conclusion to this series, and I couldn’t have wished for a better story. If you haven’t already checked out this series, I strongly recommend it. If angels are your thing, you won’t be disappointed.