The Scourge of Muirwood

In The Scourge of Muirwood, the third and final installment of Jeff Wheeler???s LEGENDS OF MUIRWOOD saga, Lia has discovered her true identity but is unable to tell anyone because the Medium has bound the information. Only a few people know and Colvin, the man Lia loves, is not one of them. While Lia broods about their relationship, she must be the Medium???s tool to save the world and hope that everything turns out in the end. Several interspersed chapters are flashbacks which tell the story of the prince of Pry-Ree and his knowledge that his daughter would be the world???s savior.

Readers who loved The Wretched of Muirwood and The Blight of Muirwood (and there are a lot of them leaving reviews at Amazon) will probably enjoy The Scourge of Muirwood, too. It???s a darker story and it brings the series to a strange ending, though Wheeler leaves it open for future stories in this setting.

I???ve enjoyed Lia???s story for the most part, but I???ve complained about the looseness of the plot and this becomes even more of an issue in this last novel. Things we thought were important get dropped or only play a small role in the plot. Other parts are difficult to swallow. For example, I never believed that Lia couldn???t find some way of letting Colvin know she wasn???t a wretched, or at least she could tell him that something important would be revealed that would let them be together.

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It's a good thing Jeff Wheeler is so prolific. I have really been enjoying his books. This was a fun story and I enjoyed the ending.

Executive Summary: A enjoyable, but mostly predictable conclusion to a decent trilogy.

Audio book: Ms. Rudd is once again the narrator for the third and final book of the trilogy. As with the previous two, she a good, but not great reader with little variety in her character voices.

She does attempt to do some accents for a few of the characters, but many of them sounded the same to me.

Full Review
I finished this of the course of the weekend. This was partly due to various chores and activities I had to finish that allowed me the opportunity to get extra listening in, and partly due to my desire to finish the story.

While I found it enjoyable, it's ending was mostly predictable, and I didn't think it was as strong as the previous novel.

One of the aspects of all the books in this trilogy that I didn't hit upon in my previous reviews is the heavy use of Christian allegory.

A key concept to the series is that your ability to channel “the Medium” is largely related to your belief in it. This relates to the notion of giving your will over to that of the Medium and faith that it will protect and bless you if you do so. Many of the abilities of the medium may only be used to the benefit of others and not oneself.

There is also a large theme of life after death, and resurrection of the dead. While these themes are present throughout the whole trilogy, they weren't as much at the forefront as they were in this book. The plot of this novel largely revolves around testing the main character Lea's faith in the Medium.

I'm reluctant to throw out the term “Deus ex Machina” because I feel that all the events fall within the explained abilities of the Medium and someone who is strong with it being able to perform those actions. I could see someone making a good case for it however.

Overall, I think Mr. Wheeler does a good job of wrapping things up with a neat bow. There is certainly room for future stories in the world of Muirwood.

The author's note indicated he has a novella called Maia taking place many years after this trilogy available on his website. I believe he wrote it prior to completing any of the Muirwood books however.