Reading The Calling so soon after finishing The Gathering is both a good and a bad thing. Good, because this book takes off exactly where we left the story in the last installment and there's absolutely no recapping for those who've forgotten what happened. Bad, because it only highlights the fact that Ms Armstrong does not have enough story for three books and this one was a complete waste of time and paper.

I really don't understand why every single publisher/author thinks that a trilogy is the only way to go. Two books are fine, two books are welcome when the alternative is a bout of middle book syndrome dawdling. Because nothing really happens in this book, and the stuff that is relevant doesn't take up enough pages that it couldn't be added to the next book. I am going to give Kelley Armstrong the benefit of the doubt and assume that she has an awesome ending planned and this book was just bridging the gap between the promising beginning and that perfect ending. I hope I'm right.

In The Calling it feels like the characters I'd come to know and love in the first book were just hanging around and waiting for something to happen... book three to arrive, perhaps? I didn't hate any of it, there wasn't really anything to hate, and I still like Armstrong's easy to read style that makes for a real guilty pleasure read when she does it properly. I don't know if it was her decision or the publisher's to make this into a trilogy, but I can tell you that it was the wrong one.

Not only that, but it also felt all too predictable. I saw everything coming and there were no surprises, mysteries or twists. It's not like we were really supposed to believe that (view spoiler)[Rafe was dead (hide spoiler)] - were we?

It's very likely that I will read The Rising when it is released, although I might wait and see what the reviews are like first to see if it was an ending worth waiting for. I think it probably is, I think Armstrong has a decent story here, I just think she had two books worth instead of three.