Chosen at Nightfall by C.C. Hunter

I was really questioning my sanity last week, reading yet another final installment of a series. 2013 really seems to be the year of the final installments. And it’s making my whole year bittersweet, in the reading department. So many endings! I need some more beginnings, seriously.

I say I want beginnings, yet I also absolutely have to read all these endings too…And this was definitely an ending I was anticipating. The previous book finally gave us some much-awaited answers about Kylie’s supernatural status and abilities. And it ended with a big betrayal by the one she loved most. It ended with such a cliffhanger. I almost needed to know what would happen next more than I needed the closure of the last installment.

(Spoiler Alert. Stop reading if you have not read the prior books in the series)

Any way, it all starts with Kylie living around those of her kind. She left the camp at the end of the last book to go live with other chameleons. And apparently the chameleons are just as strict and set in their ways as the werewolves Lucas had to live with. It’s good and it’s bad for Kylie. It’s nice to be around her grandfather. And it’s nice to learn so much about her abilities from people who experience the same things she does. However, the chameleon kids aren’t ever allowed to leave the compound because chameleons are always in hiding. Apparently, in the olden days people hunted them down and experimented and tortured them (and by people I mean the FRU).

So, the way the chameleons have made it is by constantly hiding and cutting off all communication with pretty much everyone. So, no camp phone calls for Kylie. At first, she’s grateful for this because she really doesn’t want to have any communication with Lucas at all. But, she misses her camp leaders and her roommates. She also still feels like an outcast. Before she felt like one because she was the only non-known supernatural being. Now, she stands out among the outcasts because she’s stronger. She has abilities that most of the others don’t get until well into adulthood. Also, the whole marrying off chameleons to their proper partner things is way too backwards-thinking to Kylie.

Everything changes though when some old friends find her and explain that they think Kylie’s old enemy, Mario, is back and working his hardest to find her. Kylie then decides it’s smartest to return to camp where she can have the upmost protection (even though it means dealing with Lucas and what he did). This book really couldn’t take place anywhere but camp for very long. There’s the whole running from Mario thing, on top of dealing with a ghost who’s apparently killed lots of people, learning to live with (and trying to forgive) Lucas, more love triangle business, some best friend drama, big wedding news, and a lot of revelations.

Stuff goes down with Kylie’s mom. Stuff goes down with Kylies chameleon family. Stuff goes down with Lucas, and Derek. And stuff pretty much just continues to go down through the whole thing. So many questions are answered! The romance is more sizzling than before. The action is not disappointing. It’s fun to see all the people who stand by Kylie no matter what. It’s fun to watch her share her secrets with others. And there’s all the cute, teen angst humor from the previous novels.

Was it the perfect end? No, but I loved it. It was a little too good for me in some ways. There’s this part where Kylie and Holiday are talking about the future and it seems like Kylie and her roomies are going to all go to the same school, and all come back to camp after, with the perfect jobs…And they talk about this as a very plausible possibility and it was a little too good, you know?

I liked how stuff resolved on the romantic side of things. I liked how stuff resolved with Kylie’s mom. And I loved how strong Kylie has become. She spends much of this book learning how to sword fight…Because she actually needs to know how to do this to defeat Mario. Some of the sword fighting training scenes were my absolute favorites. And it was pretty epic. Overall, I was super impressed with this last one. And I was even more impressed with this fun series. I give it a 10/10 and I look forward to reading the author’s spin-off series that will come out next year.