Faces (The Masks of Aygrima)

Thank you! I am happy with my purchase. I now have all three books and can read them together. Thank you for getting it to me swiftly.

Really a good read! awesome ending, wish the story kept going!

This book was a thrilling conclusion to a fascinating trilogy. While I did not always agree with the choices of the main character, I understood why she acted the way she did excusing some because of her age. With great power, comes great responsibility. These stories tell what happens when one fails in that responsibility or simply the fear that one might fail. This may not be the happy feel-good story you are looking for but it will keep you in thrall to the very end. I can't wait to hear what happens next and hope the author continues on with Mara's tale in a new series.

The final book in E. C. Blake's trilogy (Masks, Shadows, Faces) brings the characters into their own as unexpected twists move the reader to outcomes that couldn't have been anticipated in the first book. The society has some growing pains, as do the characters. I was satisfied that no complexity was sacrificed to a fairy tale style ending.

Good enough

Great ending to an excellent series. First and third books were better than the second, but all were the type of book you can stay up all night to finish!

Faces E.C. Blake DAW, Jul 7 2015, $19.95 ISBN: 9780756409395 With her father being the Autarch Master Maskmaker in Aygrima, Mara Holdfast's future seemed predestined as his apprentice. However, at her rite of passage ceremony, the mask her father made for her broke apart marking her as a traitor. Stunned and despondent, Mara is banished from her upper class existence to a deadly short life at a mining camp. Believing Mara is the key to their revolt, the Unmasked rebels rescue her so that she can create masks for them. Though like her father Mara can see and use all the colors, her efforts crumble (see Shadows and Masks); unlike her despotic sire, she fears draining the life forces of others needed to compete her magic. Distrusting her father to instruct her, a wary Mara turns to the only other known person with their skill level, Lady of Pain and Fire to teach her. As she learns to use her extremely rare talent in the sanctuary of the Lady of Pain and Fire, Prince Chell’s army and the Unmasked plot to overthrow the deadly rule of the Autarch. Targeting young teens and tweeners, the final Masks of Aygrima fantasy is a tremendous climax to an excellent coming of age trilogy. The keys to the anticipated confrontation are the heroine and her teammates and allies suffer setbacks that amplify their already deep fears of failure and death; and doubts about the road taken and more crippling thoughts of the “Road Not Taken” (Robert Frost). Harriet Klausner

The door is definitely open for books beyond this and I really hope the author takes it. If not you might as well not read the series because all the pain and growth of the protagonist comes to zero as she is once again a powerless little girl tidily tucked away by wilier adults who gave used her for their own purposes before discarding her, and she is surprisingly okay with it, making all that's passed before irrelevant. If this is the end of Masks if Aygrima, then it's a sorry silly end.

I thought Faces was the best book of the Mask trilogy. Unlike most series I've read that have gotten weaker with each book, Masks started off strong and got better and better with each passing release. The action moves at a fast pace in the book. There are plenty of plot twists and turns before coming to a surprising climax.