CHAOS UNLEASHED

Having saved her people from enslavement, Dara must now save the world from the forces of Chaos in the concluding chapter of the Shamra Chronicles.

In the third volume of his Shamra trilogy, Hoffman winds up the threads he had set in place in the two previous volumes. Dara finally reaches Stone Mountain to join forces with the hunter clan left behind when the rest of the Shamra people migrated two centuries before. She knows that ultimately she must defeat Chaos, the powerful force that had been disabled but not destroyed by the clanswoman Anis. But first, Dara must reunite the two estranged factions of Shamra and teach them how to escape the dogmatic religion and corrupt social standards that had led to their dire circumstances in the first place. Drea and Atyra—two other legendary women featured in a previous volume—also return from the shadowy otherworld where Shamra go after death, but Dara can’t be sure of their intentions. Are they her comrades or her enemies? Or are they simply using her for their own ends? After Dara gives birth to twin girls named Elise and Janae (featured in the bonus novella Safe Haven), she gains insight into the dynamics of family loyalties, which helps her overcome the interpersonal conflict that complicates her quest. The many people—Mitchkeys, Rulan, Shrieks and others—whom Dara had encountered on her previous adventures all join forces to finally defeat the Chaos that threatens them all. Although the previous volume, Shamra Divided, seemed disjointed, in the end Hoffman manages to tie together most of the strands that were laid out in the first two books. The most moving subplot involves the redemption of Heber, the Shamra male who had alternately supported and betrayed Dara, while other elements—like the fate of Garz, the evil Troc, whom we last saw chuckling ominously at the end of book one—disappear from the sprawling narrative.

Hoffman has brought to life a huge world worth exploring for young girls in search of exciting stories about female empowerment.