Ignited by Laurie Wetzel

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Maddy and MJ are back at last in the second book in the Unclaimed series. I read the previous book a few months ago and was really looking forward to this one. While I enjoyed the first book it left a lot of questions unanswered and I was keen to get to the truth of who or what is Maddy?

The story picks up immediately after the first book with Maddy recovering from her ordeal at the hands of demon Justin, starting a relationship with angel and Protector MJ and learning how to control her newly discovered powers. While she could probably have done with a bit of down time to adjust to all the changes the action kicks in again almost immediately. Justin’s obsession with her is growing and he’s even more determined to get her to sign over her soul to him. In addition, her inability to keep control of her powers starts to bring her to the attention of more angels and demons and possibly the serial killer from the first book.

To top it all off her new relationship starts to run into problems as she finds out some things about MJ she doesn’t like and he becomes overprotective, controlling and secretive.

Overall I think this has the potential to be a really great book. All of the key ingredients are there, a strong female lead, forbidden love, discovering powers and heaven and hell on the brink of all out war but it just doesn’t quite work yet.

For me this book suffers from a lot of the same issues as the previous one. The beginning is confused. There is too much thrown in, a lot of different characters, new words and new worlds and not enough explanation. I’d read the first book and I was a little confused with this so I’m not sure how new readers would cope. This is probably not helped by the narration switching between the characters of Maddy, MJ and Justin. If this was simplified it would be so much better.

There are a few characters that I think could be cut quite easily such as her group of friends whose names I can’t even remember because they appear so briefly and there are so many of them. As Maddy is supposedly a bit of a loner who pushes people away it doesn’t seem consistent to her character to have half a dozen close friends. There were also a few scenes I didn’t see the point of but who knows perhaps they will be important in future books.

What I did like in this book however was some of the new characters. I got to meet and learn more about some of the other Protectors with my particular favourite being Alexander. I found out more about both heaven and hell and the hierarchy of each and through Maddy’s dreams we found some answers to some of the questions (although there are still a lot more unanswered).

Once I got to the halfway point I have to admit I was starting to really enjoy it but I am frustrated because it could be so much better. I will still recommend it (if you’ve read Unclaimed first) and I will no doubt read the next one because I want to know what happens.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an ARC copy in exchange for an honest review.