Early Review: The Lair by Emily McKay

The Lair by Emily McKay

The Farm #2

In the battle against the vampiric Ticks, humanity was slowly but certainly headed for extinction. For months, twin sisters Lily and Mel had been "quarantined” with thousands of other young people being harvested for their blood—food for the Ticks. Finally escaping with a few friends, the twins are separated—and must continue the fight on their own . . .

After making it to a resistance base camp in Utah, Lily learned to survive at all costs. But when a Tick attack decimates the fighters, Lily and her pregnant friend, McKenna, decide to make the hard trek north to Canada—and safety.

Meanwhile, Mel is being taught how to survive by the very vampire that turned her. Living without her sister is hard, but dealing with the fact that her autism was cured by the vampire bite is an even bigger challenge.

But when a monstrous betrayal places Lily in mortal danger, Mel must set out to find her, save her, and begin to unravel the empire of destruction that the Ticks have built.

Despite narrowly escaping the Farm that held twins Lily and Mel they still aren't free yet. In fact Mel is simply chained in another way as she is now a vampire, and struggling to come to terms with that. Meanwhile Lily is still with Carter and McKenna as they travel to the resistance's base camp. But what they find there isn't the salvation that they hoped for as nothing is quite as it seems. They'll have to decide whether to stay or to cut their losses, but when the dangers outside are as great as the ones inside, how do you choose?

There was a whole lot going on with this book with the switch back and forth between Mel and Lily. Granted in the previous book these perspective switches happened as well, but Mel's sections were much shorter. This time around she played a much more prominent role front and center, and honestly I'm not entirely sure how I feel about that, simply due to the fact that her autism is now cured. Sure, it was very interesting seeing her grow and start to come to terms with the changes in herself, but honestly a lot of what I really liked about this series was the dynamic between Mel and Lily, which is now gone. I will say that I do like the way it was handled with Mel lamenting the loss of her music, but I'm still a bit unsure about it. Perhaps it stems from the fact that I don't think she needed to be cured, but in the end I guess that doesn't really matter, and I'm mostly happy with the way it was handled, even if it went against my personal preference.

I'm still in awe at how intense this book was, from the romance to the constant threat of the ticks, plus the overall arcing issue of the vampires and politics, and survival. I could go on and on. As I said previously there was a whole lot going on in THE LAIR. Luckily it never quite slipped from a lot into too much. But that being said, it was a very intense ride, and opened up a lot of door and possibilities. It's times like these where reviewing can be very hard as you can't get into any specifics without spoiling things. So I'll just have to suffice with saying this book is definitely worth reading for the fast pace alone, and that's not even getting into the fabulous cast of characters, who almost steal the show themselves. Again there's a whole lot going on since there is so many of them, but each one is fully three dimensional, and more than make the book.

This book has left me tied in knots from all the twists and turns, and I like the characters have no idea who to trust with everything so up in the air. But that's what keeps things interesting and me sucked completely into this series. Of course the cliffhanger ending only further cemented my interest in the series, much to my dismay as they drive me nuts. I'll definitely be counting down until the next book in the series releases.

(Received a copy from the publisher)

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Other Reviews:
     The Maniacal Bookworm

Previous Books:
     1. The Farm