Secret - Book #4 in the Elemental Series by Brigid Kemmerer - 4 STARS!

Secret by Brigid Kemmerer

 



Four getting to know you stars

Blurb - EARTH. FIRE. AIR. WATER.

Nick Merrick is stretched to breaking point. He's trying to keep his grades sky-high or he won't get in to college. He's trying to keep his brother's business afloat or the Merricks will be out on the street. He's trying to keep the secret of where he's going in the evenings from his twin brother Gabriel - or he fears he'll lose his family. And he's trying to keep his mind off the hot, self-assured dancer who is his 'girlfriend's' partner.

And then Quinn takes to hanging around his sworn enemy, and an Elemental Guide is counting the hours until he can try again to kill the Merrick brothers. Storms are brewing. On all sides.

SECRETS IN THE WIND. DANGER IN THE AIR.

Secret is book #4 in the Elemental series by Brigid Kemmerer, this book is a very different kettle of fish to the previous three books. The full reading order including all the accompanying novellas is available here.

This book is Nick’s journey of self discovery and acceptance of himself, although it does have some supernatural drama and action at the end of the book. This book mainly focuses on Nick and Quinn.

So the good bits....

·         Nick what a lovely kid, although he is the same age as his twin brother he seems a lot more immature in his relationships with other people.

·         Quinn, now don’t get me wrong for the majority of this book and the previous books I have disliked Quinn. But her character still engages me especially as we see more about what makes her tick in this book.

And the not so good bits...

·         Gareth, this is the guide who is sent into kill the Merricks. Apart from one scene at the beginning of the book he is not mentioned until he attacks Nick WTF!!

·         I missed the action, what was here was good but there just wasn’t enough of it for me.

Ok so this book was not what I was expecting at all! After reading Nicks novella Breathless I obviously knew he was gay and I figured that this book would introduce that to the rest of his family. However everything else took a back seat to Nick being gay and being with Adam.

Don’t get me wrong I enjoyed this book, and we definitely got to know Nick a lot better as well as getting a much better insight into Quinn, but now I feel like I missed out on getting to know Chris and Gabriel like this.

I loved Adam for Nick he is the perfect first boyfriend for him, Nick definitely needed to be the dominant presence in the relationship as he is the more submissive of the twins. I feel like he needed to feel like he could stand up and protect someone and Adam steps into this role easily.

Nick went from never kissed a boy to sleepovers and the walk of shame very quickly for an 18yr old boy, I appreciate that he has embraced his sexuality but people just don’t mature by five years over night.

Quinn, in the previous books she has done my head in and I had struggled to find any real empathy for her. This book shows Quinn hitting rock bottom and finding help in a very unlikely place. Tyler has definitely been portrayed as the big bad wolf in the previous books, but in this book he shone!!!

Tyler is a full elemental too!!! Brigid Kemmerer is a genius I hope he gets his own book too.

My only real criticism of this book is again that we didn’t get to see much of Gabriel, Layne, Chris, Becca or Hunter I missed them!

Calla has some brilliant one liners and she jumped out of the bushes right at the end of this can’t wait to see what she does next.

I feel like Brigid Kemmerer is really making this series evolve and mature with every book she writes, but I hope she doesn’t steer them too far from what made them good in the first place, which for me was the supernatural drama and action with romance as a side plot.

I defiantly want to get to know the characters but I just don’t want the supernatural elements to become to an afterthought.

I’m still a fan girl; I still love this series now roll on September when Michaels story Sacrifice comes out.