Unfortunately predictable. I'd worked out the big twist in the first book, and the other twist in the second book. There was a third twist I didn't expect and the book wasn't terrible, but it kind of takes the fun out of the whole thing when you're just flipping the pages waiting for it to get to the reveal that you know is coming. It's like reading a book you've read before.

It felt like a big chunk of the book was spent stuck on one particular scene, going into massive amounts of detail. I'm not sure why several chapters needed to be dedicated to Alex crawling across No Man's Land to get his heart back, most of which was the description of him crawling through the mud over and over again. While I understand how important it is/was to give tribute to the horrific conditions in the First World War, this was done before this point and later when Alex returns to the War. This part of the book just felt like filler and the zombie part? It was never ever explained.

There were also massive inconsistencies and plot holes that never got answered, things that the author just chose to push under the carpet in hopes that all would be forgiven when the big finale comes along - for me the big finale just wasn't worth it. In my opinion, the first two books were much more interesting. ( )

I spent a good amount of time travelling with ‘Alex’ wondering if the trilogy would reach a satisfying conclusion. I’m delighted to say it does, or at least did so for me. Despite one or two loose ends — much of which could be explained by the possibilities of time travel and not knowing what might be possible in the future — I put the book down with a smile wanting to revisit Alex Locke’s world again and re-read this at some point now knowing all that I guessed and all I learned.

Any series, whether a trilogy or longer, can require patience, can require reading the whole before it’s possible to give any true critique. Time travel stories often tie me up in knots, make me frustrated and the reading (or viewing) experience almost painful, all of which keeps me on tenterhooks more than any other story type — the dreadful need to correct a timeline and the possible disastrous consequences of failure. There were moments like that in this book though I never felt a need to hurry when reading this. I was as happy to enjoy Alex’s quieter periods in his life and the more exhausting ones. Perhaps the most suspenseful moments in the 3rd book are when Alex has to face trench warfare (as stated in the blurb, so this is not a spoiler). What Mark Morris has written…well, I’m sure almost any accounting of war falls short of reality, but he’s tried to express the horrors.

I’ve read several of Mark Morris’s books but the Obsidian Heart trilogy feels like something he was destined to write, I applaud the work that must have involved tying all the timelines together, and the three books will be among my book collection for a good long time. ( )

I have to say, I saw the ending coming. But that didn't detract from the enjoyment, such was Morris' skill with the delivery.

I've read all three books in the trilogy; the first ([b:The Wolves of London|20890560|The Wolves of London (Obsidian Heart, #1)|Mark Morris|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1405868285s/20890560.jpg|40233105]) - reflecting poor Alex's experiences - had an air of confused terror. Like Alex, the reader is bounced all over the place, not really knowing what's going on or how to deal with it.

Book two ([b:The Society of Blood|25414635|The Society of Blood (Obsidian Heart #2)|Mark Morris|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1429815211s/25414635.jpg|45170939]) was - for me - a bit of a hiatus, the way middle books in a series often are.

This one is a jigsaw puzzle.

I found the first third of the book pretty hard going; given the setting, I thought it could have done with a bit more feeling: the narrative was just a bit too detached. However, after that, it picked up. Alex is learning more about how the heart operates, and closer (he hopes) to finding his kidnapped daughter. On the one hand, this reduces the terror level: Alex is figuring things out, and he's more in control of events. On the other hand, what we lose in panic, we gain in pure intellectual pleasure.

Morris' vision of time travel ignores a lot of the conventions used by other authors to make things less confusing. Morris just dumps the whole plate of spaghetti into your lap, sauce and all, and expects you to cope with the resulting mess. It must have taken a certain amount of authorly courage to do it. I have to say, I thoroughly enjoyed watching Alex figuring it out, and working alongside him, waiting to see if I turned out to be right. A bit like a whodunnit, the clues are all there, if you look for them.

And when you finally get to the end, there's that happy feeling of putting the last jigsaw piece in place. ( )