Please note Consequence is the fifth book in the ongoing series The Race. If you haven’t read books one to four then the following review will no doubt feature some minor spoilers. Don’t say I didn’t warn ya!
Joanna survived another brutal race and the Runner rebellion. But now she must work with Von Zimmer to try and save a village on an Ethiopian coffee plantation from annihilation.
Can they face their personal issues and survive their cruellest adversary yet?
Time for another episode from The Race series by Joan De La Haye. Regular readers of The Eloquent Page will know I have looked at all the other books so far, feel free to check them out via this link. It would be remiss of me if I didn’t include a quick review of the latest tale that’s available. We’re on to book five, Consequence, and Joanna finds herself knee deep in trouble once again. She does have a real knack for getting into all manner of scrapes. Just as well she is more than able to look after herself. The action picks up in the aftermath of the last race. Though Joanna is still recuperating from her last traumatic experience another situation occurs that require her unique set of skills.
Our heroine and her patron, Von Zimmer, have been heading towards a bit of a showdown for a while now. If their relationship was defined on Facebook it would currently have the value “It’s complicated”. Von Zimmer has been a bit of an enigma up until now. All we know is he is incredibly wealthy and part of the secret cabal that effectively control the entire planet. We really don’t know much about the man himself. Consequence starts to slowly fill in some of the gaps. It turns out Vin Zimmer is not quite the power-hungry megalomaniac he initially appeared to be when Joanna first met him. There is an altruistic side to his nature and a lot of the plot in Consequence focuses directly on that.
In some respects, Consequence feels like a pause in the main narrative. Joanna and her boss head off on a side mission that diverts attention away from events elsewhere. I kind of like that though, it helps to flesh out the universe that The Race exists in. When we reach the end of this part of the story, we are left in little doubt that the actions of each Patron have ramifications. Nothing that they do occurs in isolation. Von Zimmer has a history that we are starting to learn about.
The Race books are great fun, explosions and gun fights aplenty. De La Haye delivers kick ass characters, often quite literally, who have the knack of getting under your skin. If you haven’t discovered The Race I recommend checking it out. The good news is that there are five short books chock full of action and adventure tale that is well worth your time. Even better, there are going to be more!
Music wise, I plumped for the American Assassin soundtrack by Steven Price. The Race novels are all about action and this soundtrack typifies the frenetic adventure vibe. I think they are a good match.
Consequence is published by the author and is available now.
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