Nicely done third story of the Jecosan Tarres books. Jeco is still trying his best to fulfill his destiny but he and Dalian and Lor Fazezil are still being thwartewd with every move. Now with the King overthrown and escaped and being called mad they will have their hands full. Nice story and did a good job of summing everything up. Nice wasy to spend a day in the sun. Well done. ( )

The Battle is the third book chronicling the adventures of Jecosan Tarres, although it easily stands on its own.

The world of The Battle is a world where good - coming from an almighty and his 'Book of Light' - and evil - demons and magicians set against the Light - are sharply defined. The characters who are'Light bearers' are right - and righteous - while those who are not

The protagonists are all Light bearers or become such by the end, and the central antagonist is a demon. An actual "summoned into the world from hell" demon. This sets up the central plot of the book, but also causes it to ring hollow. There is never any sense that the other side has gotten the upper hand, and the Light bearers' victory is pre-ordained.

Unlike reading the Chronicles of Narnia as a child, and missing the Christian allegory, The Battle is "Christian fiction" of an obvious and heavy-handed sort. Good will always defeat evil, and the righteous will always get their just rewards.

The Battle also could use an editor. There was some awkwardness in the dialogue, as well, which is always jarring. Characters would begin speaking formally, almost stiltedly and then suddenly lapse into informality. Or would begin informally and then lapse into formality. As well, some of the names chosen for characters - a magician named Mr. Henky-Roo, a barbarian tribe called the Mogres - are unintentionally comic. ( )

This book is the final book in a trilogy. I've not read the other two books, but the plot was easy enough to jump into. At some point I would like to find the other two books and read them. The story follows Jeco as his adventure comes to a close. A king is deposed and runs for his life, Jeco and his friends are declared outlaws, a war is begun by the illegitimate regent, and both good and bad supernatural forces are involved. I enjoyed the book, and it was a pretty quick read. The characters were enjoyable, the religious aspects understandable and not too heavy, and some characters find redemption and re-acceptance in the end. ( )

The Battle is a short novel which follows the adventures of young hero Jecosan Tarres and several of his friends and enemies, most notably including Dalian, Lord Farizel, and a powerful elgur named Telm.

First come my criticisms, which mostly refer to the introduction of the novel.

This book seems to be message motivated. It's a Christian fantasy novel, and the story seems to first revolve around the point that everyone needs religion/faith to be valuable, wise, or successful. Sometimes the "weak" characters' foibles seem unrealistic. For instance, one "bad" character seeks pacifism rather than war. Is pacifism really an evil thing? (The author states that the God figure approves of fighting, and that pacifism is a false ideal, set forth by demons to trap and confuse us.) My ideological disagreements with the author made getting into this book quite challenging.

Perhaps because I hadn't read the first two books in this series, I also had a very hard time getting interested in the story, which in the beginning was shrouded in rather contrived secrecy (about who Telm was, for instance). I felt like the author was intentionally leaving out details because she had no better method by which to build suspense. I would like to see more legitimate and less forced suspense. Revealing clues as to Telm's identity or hints as to the nature of Jeco's task would have helped gain my interest earlier in the story.

I also had difficulty becoming invested in the characters. It wasn't until I was a third of the way through the story that I began to like the characters. They simply were not developed quickly, perhaps because the novel tells simultaneous stories of at least four different groups of people, or perhaps because, as a third book in a series, the author was relying on the reader having formed an attachment to the characters in the earlier novels. Unfortunately, I almost gave up on the book at this point.

I cannot award this book a high rating because too many times I wanted to quit it! Thankfully, it did turn for the better. Here is what I liked about it.

The plot picked up and became clearer. Once most of the relationships and identities were clarified, the characters began to change and grow and feel worthwhile to me. By the time I was half of the way through the book, both the characters and the plot had me tethered. I even became excited to discover more about the religious message!

I really liked the young Princess Arvelina, who is instantly likable and only becomes more-so as the book progresses. She is a strong, mature, witty girl whose conversation and play are fun to observe and whose cleverness brings true suspense and surprise to the story.

I also found myself liking King Alvard, even though at the beginning of the story his character wasn't at all interesting to me. It's no coincidence that he gains complexity and richness as the story progresses.

I had much fun reading the last part of the story, and looked forward to picking it up every chance I had. ( )

This is the first book of this series that I have read. I enjoyed the story; however, I found the story line to be quite predictable. Nothing in the book stuck me as totally unexpected.

I found myself really liking the characters, even though I did not have the other books in the series to build a foundation with them. The author did a good job of creating the characters even in the third book of the series.

If you are looking for an easy, laid back read, this is the book for you. There is not much in the way of action and suspense, but this book would be good for adults and young adults looking for an escape from the real world. ( )