Jennifer Lynn Barnes's style of writing reminds me alot of Ally Carter's style. The books I have read by her have been fast reads and there is never a dull moment. You dive right into the story and are immersed immediately into the world of the characters.
Book #1 was The Fixer. You're introduced to Tess, the main character pretty much right off the bat. She is independent and it this point had not been able to really rely on anyone, except her grandfather who we learn has dementia. She doesn't like her sister and the animosity between them stays throughout the entire first novel. Ivy has a deep affection for Tess, but Tess has troubles reciprocating. The first hing I notice about these two characters is how similar they are and the parallels between them are less sisterly and more mother/daughter, which you find out later on in the book. Ivy had Tess at 17 and her parents decide to raise Tess as their daughter while Ivy goes off to college, etc.
This book was really fast paced. From the moment you open it until the very end, Tess is up to something. She makes friends at her new school after her sister/mother takes her to Washington DC with her. And those friends are all children of or related to somehow a politician or someone who is important in someway. I love that Tess, even though she tries to keep her distance, gets thrown into situations with different people and because she's a nice person who doesn't want to see anything bad happen to anyone, she does whatever she can to help.
The plot of this book revolved around murder/suicide of some very important people in the Whitehouse and in DC. It starts with the death of a Supreme Court Justice and ends with Tess getting kidnapped as leverage for Ivy. The whole of the book stayed intriguing and again it really didn't slow down much from start to finish. I really enjoyed this one and can't wait for book 2!
Book #2 was The Long Game. This book was super intense! It starts out lightheartedly enough with Tess plotting things for a fellow student at school. The mood is lighthearted and fun to begin with. The intensity grows a little when the Student Body Elections begin, but things begin to take a turn when and enemy of Tess and her friends is murdered. From that point on the intensity of this book stays really high. As a reader I was pretty much on the edge of my seat for the rest of the book. Tess gets pulled into the investigation because she was there when the guy gets killed and tried to rescue him, but her friend Asher was seen punching the guys lights out, so he is the number one suspect for a while. But things take a turn when you find out through the many twists and turns that Barnes puts in this book, that Tess's whole school is being targeted by a terrorist group and Tess manages to get herself in the middle of that too.
Unfortunately, the integrity of one of my favorite characters comes into question, when you find out he is involved with the terrorist group. Henry, the sad kid that he is, ends up being sucked into the plot and when Tess comes out she gets really angry, for obvious reasons. Honestly, though, he was the perfect choice for this type of betrayal. Barnes picked a good character. He is a depressed kid who has been down on his luck when it comes to family situations. His father committed suicide, which he wasn't supposed to know about, and his grandfather had been murdered in the previous book. While I didn't see it until it was announced in the book, his turning to the dark side didn't really shock me. I mean, it surprised me that it happened, but knowing what we did about the character, I wasn't surprised that he turned.
This was a great duology and while I had wished to see some good news that another book would come out, I was sorely disappointed when I saw on Jennifer Lynn Barnes's blog that this was going to be the final book. She, of course, has to listen to what her publishers want as publishing books, like most transactions, is business. She did say that there would be news soon about The Fixer series and that she hoped her fans would be happy with it. On that note I will leave you to decide if you'd like to read this series. I really enjoyed it and gave it a four star rating on Goodreads. I look forward to more news about this series in the future!
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