Book Review: The Children of the Widow by Henri Loevenbruck (Gallica #3)

Note: The title of this book and has been translated into English by me for the reading comprehension of this blog's viewers. The original title reads Les Enfants de la Veuve from the Gallica trilogy.

Our last trip into the world of Gallica. Will it be good? Let's see. Spoilers ahead.

With all Mists rescued, Bohem and his friends must now find a way to survive not only the rising political climate between Brittia and Gallica, but also the endless human deaths that have been occurring. Will they make it until the end?

I liked this book overall, but it did fall flat to me quite a bit, too. For example: the subplot with Camille. It's revealed that she's Bohem's long-lost sister and she's continuously built up as a major antagonist, only to be killed off rather swiftly without much to her death. Very anticlimactic.

The whole final confrontation with Lailoken was also a disappointment. Heck, the book ends before we get a real conclusion. He saves Loeva's life and that's it. I guess we'll have to presume this made everything okay in the end, but, like, at least properly end your story and don't just leave stuff hanging.

The writing and characters were still good, but not amazing either. I got once more really tired of the constantly political stuff between Emmer and Livain. I just don't care for these characters, so having them constantly being interspersed within these chapters was the opposite of a threat. I get that they want to have a war going on to add more conflict, but they didn't have to be so prominent that they stole the spotlight from our main story.

I guess I do like the ending revelation somewhat, that the surviving wolves are the last Mists that remain to this day, but it is also tainted that this means all wolves are a product of incest as there were only two wolves that were left behind while traveling to the Sidh. The problem would've been solved if Loevenbruck had decided that maybe an entire pack of wolves or more than that had been left behind to aid Bohem, but nope, only two remain so therefore the only way for our modern-day wolves to supposedly still be left is through inbreeding.

There's also the fact that humans are dying left and right throughout the entirety of this book, yet our heroes only lose one of their allies, one of the most minor characters who had a total of two, maybe three appearances. There could've been some really devastating deaths to motivate Bohem. Vivienne or her aunt, Mjolln, La Rochelle, etc., but instead they went for his long-long uncle who barely appears. I guess Loeva drops dead at one point, but she's revived, so that doesn't really count. 

While I did enjoy the Gallica trilogy more than the Moïra one, it ultimately still leaves much to be desired. These books are decent and if they do get translated into English, I do recommend you check out at least the first book of the first trilogy, but they weren't my favorites for me personally.

Rating: 3.5/5