I've read one other book by Older, "Shadowshaper". That one is YA and I thought it was a bit slight, so I was curious to read one of his books for adults. I happened to see this on Netgalley and thought it was the perfect opportunity.

I think my reading of this book suffers a bit from coming in on the end of a series. A lot of the character development and relationships have already been established, so I felt like I was missing a lot. My favorite character was probably Sasha, and I might have liked Carlos better if I had gotten to know him over the course of the whole trilogy. Both Carlos and Sasha got POV writing, and so did Krys and Caitlin. My understanding is that Sasha and Carlos are mostly dead, although I'm not really sure what that means. They act like normal people, but their skin is greyish and they are cool to the touch. Not exactly zombies, not exactly like anything I can name. Krys seems to be fully a ghost. She's a teenager, and she likes weaponry. Caitlin seems to have been one of the bad guys from the last book, still lurking about and plotting revenge, mostly.

While the characters were interesting, the plot felt like it was all over the place. Everyone wanted to take on The Council (which apparently is in charge of the supernatural in NYC?) but I couldn't figure out why. Clearly they were unpopular, but I really didn't understand enough about the situation to get invested in it. Carlos and Krys were apparently moles within the Council for the rebels, but I didn't see them (especially Krys) do much spying.

The big mystery seems to be who Carlos and Sasha were before they died. I can certainly understand wanting to know that, but at the end the explanation felt almost drained of meaning. There was some quick exposition about their demises, but I never got a lot of emotion from either character about it. Was it because they had accepted their new identities and were moving on? I'm just not sure.

Krys ended up being pretty separated from all the other characters, to the point that I wondered why she was in the book. She also was pretty horny most of the time. Teenagers, I know, but it threw me a bit. She meets an Iyawo ( apparently a priestess-in-training) who doesn't touch people, doesn't have sex, and doesn't use mind-altering substances (mostly?) because she is experiencing a purification. This young priestess is sassy, but I wasn't sure why she was in the book either. She didn't seem to have a purpose other than to generate some steaminess.

Older isn't afraid to have his characters feel, care about each other, react accordingly. This may not have been the right book to try to get a feel for his writing. I don't know that I will go back and re-read the whole trilogy now that I'm thoroughly spoiled, but I would be interested in reading what he does next. I remember back in the day reading an exerpt from his first book, "Half-Resurrection Blues" on tor.com, and not being taken by the writing enough to want the whole book. So I think I'll look forward to whatever the next series is.

I must admit that I'm disappointed with this book. I had loved Midnight Taxi Tango (which I reviewed as well), so I was looking forward to see what trouble Carlos, Sasha, Reza and Kia would manage to get themselves into next.

Well, bad news is, even though we still get Carlos and Sasha POVs, Kia is virtually non-existent in Battle Hill Bolero, and Reza seems to have taken a long sabbatical or something. Same goes for a few other characters I really liked from the previous books, like Baba Eddie. Instead, we are introduced to a plethora of new characters that seem to have come out of nowhere, like Krys, the River Giants and a bunch of other ghosts. Oh, they are interesting and fully fleshed out, but they seem tacked on to the story and spend most of the book on the outskirts of the main action, sorta hanging there with nothing particularly important to do until the last battle.

Oh, don't misunderstand me, I really loved Krys. Once again, Mr. Older has a knack for creating wonderfully diverse characters that you WANT to follow. The problem is, the path Krys follows is barely tangent to the story for most of the book. So much so that her story feels disconnected from the main events.

And why is Caitlin even in this book? Her story was pretty much done with the destruction of the blattodeon at the end of Midnight Taxi Tango. Oh, we could have had an excellent revenge arc where she could have sought to destroy Carlos and Sasha for bringing down everything she'd worked for her entire life. Unfortunately, the author chose not to take that route. Instead, she is hangs on the outskirts of the story for most of the book and only plays an important role during the last battle, but even that story arc could have been taken out of the book entirely without any major damage to the story. Caitlin is a non-entity. She gets no personal development at all, which is rather surprising for an author who loves creating characters that feel so alive they jump out of the book page at you. Her only role in the book is to be a weapon and to distract Carlos from the main fight for a few minutes.

This is so disappointing because, like I already mentioned, she could have been so much more. Just imagine - a powerful necromancer going after the people who killed her family, destroyed the cult she had dedicated her entire life to and basically left her future in shambles. That warranted a whole book dedicated to the clash between these powers.

And this is where my major complaint about Battle Hill Bolero lies - the story. It doesn't feel like the third book in a series and a direct continuation of Midnight Taxi Tango. When I started the book, I had to go on Amazon and make sure that I didn't skip a couple more books in the series, because I was so confused with the direction of the story. By the end of Midnight Taxi Tango, Carlos, Sasha and their group had defeated the blattodeon and saved their children from a gruesome fate. Yes, there had been rumblings about the Council of the Dead amongst the ghosts, and Carlos didn't particularly like his employers, but nothing even hinted at the full-out confrontation we start Battle Hill Bolero with. Where did that come from?

The author implies that only a few months passed between the two books, but for the situation to escalate like this, a lot of things must have happened. Things that aren't even mentioned or explained. So the reader starts the book with a nagging feeling that they skipped an important portion of the story. As a result, I felt disconnected from most of the new characters. I was so busy trying to figure out the stakes and the whats and the whys of the situation to concentrate on the plethora of new characters that were thrown my way.

It is sad that this happened, because I truly loved this series; the diversity and complexity of the world; the vivid and interesting characters. But this book feels rushed and disjointed at the same time, which almost puts me off this series entirely. I might give the next book a read or I might not, but I won't be eagerly waiting for it anymore.

PS. I received an advanced copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This book.

This fucking book.

I just can't even come up with the words to review it, so please bear with me.

Battle Hill Bolero is angry and joyous and lyrical and triumphant.

Book one was good, book two was great, and this book is why you read the first two. To get to this glorious point. If it's been awhile since reading Half-Resurrection Blues or Midnight Taxi Tango, take the time to reread them before diving in to Battle Hill Bolero. Get back on first name basis with the characters. The book dives forward and takes no prisoners.

Non stop kick butt action. Battle Hill Bolero was by far one of the best books I’ve had the pleasure of reading this year. It was completely action packed, full of colorful, authentic characters, and there was never a dull moment.

Fantastic finish to a strong series. Looking forward to the next thing Older does.