Ascend
Amanda Hocking
St. Martin’s Griffin, Apr 24 2012, $8.99
ISBN: 9781250006332

In Minnesota with her eighteenth birthday coming, Wendy Everly has no reason to celebrate. The royal troll changeling feels trapped as she is obliged to marry someone immediately to become the queen of Forening a position she does not want. She has viable candidates who she cares about, but the teen wonders who would be best for her people at a time of crisis. Adding to her regal woes is, her father the king of the Vittra threatens to destroy the Trylle if his daughter fails to surrender; she knows his trill forces will overwhelm her meager side.

Still she has come a long way from the high school student and monster as her mom called her years ago who only recently learned she is the biological daughter of royal trolls at war. Princess Wendy has learned to use her powers and has a strong support cast, human and troll, ready to die for her. Her heart is a different matter as she knows she must marry one of her loyal supports like Tove, but there is her former lover Finn the tracker and Loki the Vittra wanting to remain at her side.

The third Trylle teen urban fantasy (see Switched and Torn) is a superb much darker thriller as the heroine chooses duty over desire. Fast-paced, readers will enjoy the complicated romance as Wendy has Finn, Loki and Tove wanting her. Besides them, she knows the war with her father will devastate the Trylle if she opts to fight, but her distrust of her brutal patriarch makes surrender even less appealing. This is a great ending to a strong trilogy.

Harriet Klausner