Cherish

Introduction

Cherish was written by Tracy Wolff and published on May 30th, 2023, by Entangled Publishing company as the final installment to her Crave series. With this being the last book in the series, the Thoughts section will contain spoilers for all of these books, including this one. However, the Spoiler-Free Thoughts section will be safe for anyone who hasn’t read this book, though the rest of the series is still on the table. I love talking to others about their own ideas, so if you would like to do so, please feel free to reach out to me in either my comment sections or my DMs.

If you want to keep up with Tracy Wolff and the rest of her work, visit her website https://tracywolffauthor.com and follow her on Instagram @tracywolffbooks.

Plot

With Mekhi’s life hanging in the balance and the question of who will take on the Vampire, Dragon, and Gargoyle thrones, this final journey to the Shadow Realm will decide all of their fates.

Spoiler-Free Thoughts

It is no secret that Jaxon, Hudson, and Grace are long overdue for a conversation regarding their relationships with one another. Hudson gave up everything to keep Jaxon safe, but Jaxon hates him for what he thinks Hudson stood for. Grace used to love Jaxon in part because of her grandmother’s manipulations, but her true mate was Hudson the entire time. This is a complicated situation, and it’s a series where I do think the love triangle was done well, and I was happy to finally see some resolution between the three of them, as I would have expected from this final installment.

On the topic of good conversations, I have been mostly consistent in my love for Flint as a character and for his friendship with Grace. Both are with Vega men, allowing them to make new bonds on the basis of dealing with them trying to take everything on themselves. It appears to be a Vega trait to feel the need to make all of the sacrifices, but the point of teamwork and partnership is the division of responsibility and sacrifice. No one person in the pair should shoulder all of it, especially when both men have partners more than willing to take on their share.

I was a bit iffy about this book and found it overall a bit underwhelming, but I did ultimately enjoy the ending, both to this book and the series as a whole. As a result, I rate this book a 7/10.

Thoughts

There are obviously a few conflicts that need to be solved right off the bat. The first is that three thrones are ready to be taken over, but there isn’t an obvious way to fill them. The first problem is that if Flint takes up the Dragon throne with Jaxon at his side, then Jaxon cannot also sit in the Vampire throne, presumably leaving it for Hudson - though I did consider Izzy for a moment. That creates an issue in that if Hudson takes the Vampire throne, then Grace cannot take up the Gargoyle throne. This is what she has been working towards, and to be honest, Hudson has no desire to take up the Vampire throne, but not doing so means Flint cannot take the Dragon throne for himself. This is a politically difficult situation for these young paranormal to deal with, especially when they just came out of a war alive and now have to attempt to save Mekhi’s life. However, there was a solution that I had not considered in allowing the Bloodletter to take up the place as the Vampire Queen, allowing everyone else to fall into place and sparing the Vegas that dread.

I did notice that Hudson was much more secretive in this book. He and Grace are not bad at communication, it was actually one of my favorite things about their dynamic, and I’m not exactly sure why - in the last installment - that’s changing. However, when they did begin communicating again after a few chapters - thank goodness it wasn’t more drawn out than that - they were able to work through some of it. This ultimately being caused not by Hudson lying about or hiding anything but simply trying to figure things out on his own and in his own time, which is a kind of vulnerable honesty that I don’t see very often between book couples. Usually, everything boils over to a breaking point, and only then does everything come out all at once.

Vegaville was very odd. I understand why it was changed; the people were enamored with Hudson while he and Grace were there and especially so after they saved the town, but I don’t love it. The silver lining was Smokey’s return, that in itself made that trip to the Shadow Realm worth it.

I found the ending to be very poetic. The Shadow Queen lied about there being a cure for Mekhi’s shadow sickness when the Crone’s lie to her was what led to the creation of the Shadow Realm to begin with. To add to that, Mekhi and Lorelei being mates wasn’t entirely a shock, nor was her being the solution, but it upended her own mother’s ruling that Mekhi would not be cured. However, the battle at the end felt rushed and somewhat predictable.

Ultimately, Hudson starting his own school out of what used to be his torture chamber felt almost too perfect, and I truly loved that everyone got their happy ending. There was no tragic death in this book, and they’ve all suffered so much that a peaceful end to this chapter of their stories was exactly what they deserved.