It has been a long time since I've read anything by Kate Avery Ellison. She was one of the first indie authors I ever read and for the most part, I liked her Frost series and her Secrets of Itlantis series. I had forgotten how easily I get sucked into her books, until I picked up Red Rider, and holy cow! I could hardly put it down. That isn't to say that I thought it was without flaws though. In fact, there was something really frustrating about the fact that I found this so compelling but also pretty flawed.
I'll start with the things I liked. I like the easy, compelling writing style the author has. When I saw that she had written a Red Riding Hood retelling I had to try it, because I love Red Riding Hood retellings. I enjoyed certain aspects of the story because of that, and I liked that this put a bit of a different spin on Red Riding Hood as well. I liked the main character a lot, and also absolutely loved Vixor Rae. Also, I liked that there was one twist later in the series that I didn't see coming at all, and I always appreciate when a book surprises me.
One of the things I didn't like so much was the constant back and forth between Red and Vixor. They go in circles with their relationship constantly throughout the series and it drove me crazy! I expected this to be resolved in the second book, certainly by the third, but no, it is still going on 5 books in! Overall, there is too much repetition in the series, and I don't think the series needed to be as many books as it is. I also thought that the Wolves didn't do enough as wolves in the series. They rarely change into werewolf form and they didn't feel as threatening or sinister as they should have. I felt like they were kind of upstaged by the tree crawlers, and I'm not really sure why the tree crawlers were included in the first place. There are also some things that I would like more of an explanation for. Why are there werewolves and tree crawlers? What happened to our world to make all this happen? Instead of focusing on answering these questions, the back and forth relationship was focused on too much.
Category: Young Adult
Below are the descriptions for each book and my ratings for them.
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
In a land where a
werewolf army called the Sworn rule over the humans and walking corpses
called treecrawlers roam the wilderness between settlements, orphaned
Red has a secret that she and her grandmother have been hiding for
years. She's one of the Chosen, the despised young women selected to
bear children in the stead of barren female werewolves.
Red
keeps her identifying mark hidden, and she doesn't take advantage of the
luxuries available to the future mothers of the Sworn. But her secret
is discovered when she rescues her rebel boyfriend from execution for
treason, and she can hide the truth no longer.
Red is
intercepted by a dangerous young Sworn named Vixor Rae, a prince among
the werewolves, and taken through the dangerous wilderness to serve her
fate in the capital.
Vixor intrigues Red against her will, but he is her enemy, and she wants nothing more than to see him dead.
But
when treecrawlers attack the Sworn caravan headed for the capital, and
only Red and Vixor survive, the two must rely on each other to make it
out of the perilous wilderness alive.
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Meredith Rider, known as
Red, has been captured once more by Sworn soldiers and taken to the
capital of the werewolf empire. There, she is forced to train with a
group of other captive girls in the arts and graces of the Chosen, the
unlucky human girls whose DNA is compatible with that of werewolves.
In other words--breeders.
Red isn't about have babies for the enemy. She's going to escape or die trying.
And
her conflicted feelings for the darkly handsome, cruelly cunning Vixor
Rae, the Sworn champion of the Alpha who goes by the nickname Silver
Wolf, are only going to get in her way.
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars
Red never intended to be the mate of a Sworn.
She never intended to stay in the capital.
She never intended to fall in love with the enemy.
Now, she has to decide what she's going to do about it, and where her loyalties lie.
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Red Rider has escaped
the Sworn capital, and now, she rescues Chosen girls under the code name
Red Riding Hood and takes them through the wilderness to a secret city
run by the Order of the Crimson. She leaves behind her calling card, a
white mask, after every rescue.
Her alias, Red Riding Hood, is growing infamous across the land.
But Red longs for Kassian, who has either forgotten their love or is pretending he no longer loves her for her own protection.
When
a Huntsman shows up looking to kill the Silver Wolf, Red finds herself
torn between loyalty to helping the Chosen girls and her love for the
one she can never have.
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Red Rider has been many things. A Chosen girl. A veiled mate of a Sworn officer. A runaway. The fabled White Mask.
Now, she's simply... alone. Abandoned by family and allies.
And Kassian, who traded his life for hers, is imprisoned somewhere she cannot find and awaiting execution.
Red
is determined to find a way to rescue her captured mate. She must
convince someone from her past to help her find the Red City, and she's
desperate enough to strike a deal with an old enemy.
Can Red save Kassian without selling her soul?
