Title: The Power
Author: Jennifer L Armentrout
Publisher/Year:  Spencer Hill Press 2/23/16
Length:   334 pages
Series:  Titan #2

Overview

With any great change, there is always strife, and the Covenant University has become the frontline between pure-bloods who want the Breed Order reinstated and the half-bloods who want the right to control their own destinies.

Fate has other plans.

The violence is escalating and war between the races seems inevitable, and it couldn’t come at a worse time. Hyperion may be out of commission, but Josie and Seth know they have only earned a reprieve. Seth must get Josie fully prepared, which means controlling her newfound abilities, and they need to find the other demigods before the Titans do.

But the gods are sensing a greater threat.

Only one thing is more dangerous than a bunch of starved Titans, and that’s an out-of-control Apollyon. The aether in Josie is drawing Seth in deeper, and when lust mixes with love and gives way to power, he knows being close to her is not only dangerous to her, but to everyone around them, but letting her go requires a level of selflessness that just isn’t Seth’s style.

The paths taken in the past are becoming the roads of the future.

Just as chaos breaks out, familiar faces from the past return, complicating the already strained bond between Josie and Seth, and when the danger from the Titans erupts with devastating consequences, the dark allure of power calls to Seth again, but this time Josie might not be able to pull him back.

And when the struggle between power and love becomes the deadliest battleground, there may be no salvation.

My Thoughts

I loved the original series and i love this one just as much.  i feel like i continue to be concerned with how they are going to evolve the story to make it fresh, yet still give us bits of the characters that we really love.  Ms Armentrout has done that!

So as you will remember, Josie is at the Covenant where she’s being trained to not just protect herself but to use her powers that need to gain strength.  At the same time, she’s sorting through these new feelings that she has for Seth, since that’s a place that neither of them have ever been before.  If that weren’t enough, the Shades and Titans are still after them, and there’s unrest in the school between Halfs and Pures, and well, death is all around them, all the time.

There are constantly hints being tossed at Josie on what she needs to know, who she needs to find, how she can find the other demigods and who she can trust, and i think that it’s a constant battle for her between being too trusting and skeptical at the same time.

So, that being said, we’re no a roller coaster that takes us on a variety of paths.  We see the return of Aiden and Alex which puts Josie out of balance, and makes Seth’s old personality come back a bit.  Then there’s the issue of all the Pures trying to kill the Halfs while making it a bit tougher to protect the school from outside forces, and then there’s the random appearances of gods throughout that keep giving bits of information but never the whole story.  Josie’s being told to perhaps not trust Seth and while they are on again off again, it’s not something that she’s truly conformed to.

This 2nd installment gives us the introduction to Hercules, another demigod that has quite a cocky attitude who’s role is to help seek out the other 3 demigods that haven’t awakened.  He’s got the ability to see them out, but i guess the question is whether everyone will manage to not kill him in the meantime.

Where this story goes though is a semi deja vu situation since there’s constant talk of ‘The God Killer’ which is the result if you remember in the first story where 2 Appollyons live in the same generation.  Everyone thinks that its Alex and with her return, there’s fear, but i guess you can’t count Seth out.  It’s not until Atlas shows up, a TItan that we see the unleashing of power that no one knew that anyone had, and well, the story is thrown into a tailspin.

I now have to say that im really excited to see what’s next in The Struggle and sad that i have to wait a year for it based on what i’ve read.  I think that there’s so much that this story can still do, and the characters are evolving still so much from the original series that i feel like we don’t even have a true sense of where it’s going to go.  Will Josie and Seth make it, will both Alex and Aiden continue to have their happily ever after?  Will Deacon and Luke make it to the end together?  THen there’s the question about who’s going to confront the Titans and who’s going to win.  Who’s going to die, since we’ve already seen a beloved character die in this installment.  So on that note – enjoy and now im off to find something else to entertain me reading wise!