The Sea Devil's Eye

by Mel Odom

Reviewed by Coral

Laaqueel's brush with death has left her trust in Iakhovas shaken. So much so, that she can no longer find pleasure in any part of sahuagin life.

After having lost the crystal thing given to him in the last book, Jherek and his friends must head off to retrieve it.

Pacys' story was boring and I skimmed over it, but the gist of it was that he was trying to find Jherek and piece together Iakhovas' history.

I had prepared myself for this series wrapping up unsatisfactorily, but I still found myself disappointed as I read it. For the main part of 3 books the good guys barely knew about each other, much less worked together, and barely understood the full scope of what was aligning against them.  I didn't like how quickly their coming together to do battle was dealt with in the book.

It was also disappointing, after having been built up over the previous books, that Iakhovas was defeated so easily. An unseen goddess coming in and whispering to one of the characters that he isn't as powerful as he seems isn't enough for me to believe that he could be so easily beaten, especially with what he's been able to do. I'm angry that it was Jherek who beat him and not a god. Actually, I'm angry that he even lost.

I really didn't understand Laaqueel's plot in this book. For 2 books she's been fiercely devoted to her people. All of her mistrust of Iakhovas came from how he treated her people, how he was so easily sacrificing them for his purpose. And then in this book she suddenly turns against them? Is disgusted by them? That came out of nowhere.

Maybe I missed this while skimming (Jherek and Pacys' plots were too meandering and pointless for too long) but Bloody Falkane just seemed to disappear. It would have been nice to have the confrontation between him and his son that I thought the books were leading too.