Horizon by Christie Rich

Elemental Enmity #4

"Evil has many faces—unfortunately, Rayla Tate has seen them all, or so she thinks. Since she learned she was an Elemental, she has been hunted for her power. But Rayla hasn’t met her greatest foe; she hasn’t seen true evil…yet.

Rayla betrayed her bondmate to be with the man she loves. Now that she has Heath at her side, she is ready to face the fae council and move on with her life. Too bad Zach has other ideas. He’s not about to give Rayla up just because his sister got in the way. He will find Rayla and prove to her that he is the man she is meant to be with, even if he has to face the monsters of the dark realms to do it.

Despite her growing feelings for Heath, with every passing day, her body gives in to her bond with Zach. Rayla must leave the dark realms or risk losing control of her mind and ultimately her power. Once back in Lombarda, she discovers a secret about her origins that could shake the foundations of the world, both fae and human. There is more at stake than who she is bound to. The Order and the fae both want control of the same thing, and this time, it is not her.

Rayla must unite with unlikely allies to destroy the evil plaguing Faeresia. For if she refuses, she will succumb to a compulsion she never could have anticipated and plunge the world and those she loves into darkness or utter oblivion."

The fourth and final book in the Elemental Enmity series. And I feel as though I was let down with how it ended. I would never call any of the books in this series a masterpiece. They are certainly aimed at a target audience, I just happen to not really be in that audience. I won't deny that the concept of this series is that interested me, and kind of what kept me reading. But I just can't stand any of the characters.

Rayla is depicted as this selfless, intelligent, kind, and loving person. But all of her actions are self-serving. She never comes off as someone who has that much common sense. I think she's supposed to be 20, but all her actions and mannerisms are crap that a 16-year-old would pull.

Both Zach and Heath are equally bossy and demanding. They want Rayla to make the "right" decisions for things, and want her to love them fully. Yet neither of them seem too keen on being as honest as possible with her. And the "love" that Rayla has for Heath just seems so superficial, and fake. He has honestly done nothing to earn or deserve her to love him, and even though I like the character of Zach more than Heath, he also doesn't deserve her love. From straight up lying to her to compelling her. The only good or interesting characters were the villains.

The whole point of her being forced into a bond was to take down this elusive order, yet 80% of the book is spent with Rayla whining like a child about not getting what she wants. (which I'm not even sure she really knew what that was in the first place) I kind of felt like the author had one idea that was supposed to set things up for the next book, and so on, but none of her original ideas seemed to fit into what she wanted to do. But that just means that none of the books really line up that well in a  story that flows smoothly from one book to the next.