Review: Judged by Liz de Jager

Judged (The Blackhart Legacy #3) by Liz de Jager
Publisher: Tor UK
Released: January 14th 2016
My Rating: 3.5 stars out of 5
Find it on Goodreads

Kit's job description includes solving crimes - the supernatural kind...

Glow, a fae-created drug, is rapidly going viral and the suppliers have to be shut down. Teaming up with Aiden and Dante, Kit follows leads across London, tracking down dealers. They stir up trouble, making themselves a target for the gang they're trying to stop.

In the Otherwhere, Thorn stumbles across a secret that could destroy both the human and Fae worlds. The Veil that separates our human world from the fae realms is weakening and the goddess is dying. And if she dies and the Veil fails, madness and chaos will wreak unstoppable havoc upon both lands.

Thorn turns to the only person he knows who'll be able to help him: Kit. Torn between working the Glow case and her loyalty for the young prince, Kit is propelled headlong into a world of danger. She faces enemies from both the Otherwhere and our world. And as the stakes are raised, the consequence of failure for both Kit and Thorn, and two realms, could be devastating. (from Goodreads)

While Judged wasn’t my favourite book in the Blackhart Legacy trilogy, it was a satisfying ending to a series I’ve really enjoyed, and I’m sad to see it go.

Kit was back and up to her usual antics - I really liked her character and the approach she took when it came to investigating. She was doubting herself a little in this book though, wondering about her magic and why she, as a human, possessed it (I would have liked a bit more explanation in this actually). But despite all the crazy stuff that was happening and everything she had to witness, she managed to get through it. Kit was nothing if not determined and I also really loved her sense of humour (especially her comments and comeback to Aidan and Dante!). Her friendship with Aiden and Dante was wonderful and I loved they could all joke around and make funny comments and get along so well - it was really nice the way they all supported each other as well, whenever one of them was troubled, and the dynamic between them was great to read about. Some of the dialogue could be cheesy at times, but it was bearable amounts, not “I need to shut this book and roll my eyes” amounts.

Speaking of Aiden and Dante, I loved them both! I found their relationship really sweet and funny and they just had such great chemistry. Dante grew on me in the second book and I think I liked him even more in this one. Aiden, I’ve always liked. In this book especially he was concerned about Kit and I liked that he could go from serious to joking around - he was always the person you could turn to when the situation called for it.

Thorn though, he was just not in this book enough! I did enjoy all the scenes he was in and the parts where he and Kit were together were cute, but I would have liked to have seen more of him. I did expect this was going to happen in this book though, after the ending of book two, so I wasn’t that disappointed.

Things started a bit slow in this book and it took a while for me to really become engaged with the story. The beginning was all about Glow and Kit and Dante and Aidan trying to find the dealers - more of what we’ve already seen before, really. They also hadn’t heard from Thorn in a while and a were concerned about him. There wasn’t too much actually going on - it wasn’t really until we started to understand why Glow was being distributed that things really started to pick up - and from then on, I really enjoyed the story. There were a few twists too that surprised me and I didn’t see the ending going down like that! Most things were wrapped up nicely but I wouldn’t say no to another book set in this universe if Liz de Jager wanted to write one!

Overall, I struggled with this book a bit at the beginning but enjoyed it overall, and thought it was a nice way to conclude the series.