Has anyone got The Mage yet? It's the 8th (and final) book in the Sons of Destiny series, which we've discussed before in this forum.

I've been so looking forward to the conclusion of the series and Morganen's story.  I'm about half way through the book and am having a few problems with it. Don't get me wrong, no matter what - it's a great series and I didn't even mind paying full price ($15.00) for this book. But the problems are:

1) It's much harder to relate to Morganen as as an adult man and thus the love interest of this book. Maybe it's because he's the youngest of the eight. I practically have a visual of the old "Little Rascals" shows where they'd have the 4 and 5 year olds dressed up as adults in those black and white short movies.

2)The author is driving me crazy with her italized words. The book has a lot more dialog than narrative, which I tend to mentally "hear" in my head as I read. Practically every other sentence has words emphasized in italics like the speaker is trying to stress the word or concept.  Such a little thing, seems like I should be able to overlook it. But it's grating on me like when you converse with someone who artificially emphasizes words over and over. Here's an example:

"I'll remind you this was before Morg rescued you into another universe. Before you even knew that such things existed...because as far as your people know, they do not. They have no way of parting the Veils, and no way of observing other realties. if I had told anyone I was from another universe, what would have happened to me?"

One short paragraph and she has to stress SEVEN words???   The whole book is like that. Did Jean Johnson do this in the other books? Ugh.

On the bright side, there are already some nice twists and turns in the story and the main storyline of Nightfall's fate continues on. That's one of the things I like best about the series - how much each book adds to the overall plot, yet each stands by itself.

Anyone else reading/read it?

Okay, just finished the book. This one definitely wasn't my favorite, but - still - a nice ending to the series. I'll post the synaposis below. Technically, the release date isn't until 4/7, but some bookstores have it now.  As more of you read it, I'd love to hear your comments. For anyone just starting - this is a great series, but you'll want to read it in order. I'd estimate for each book, maybe 60% is about the specified couple and 40% is about the ongoing storyline that continues throughout the series.

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The Mage
by Jean Johnson
Release Date: 4/7/09

I ordered it and should have it later this week.  I have to say, this was not my favorite series but once I read a few of them I had to finish it, lol, just to see what happens.  I'm not sure about the italicized words.  I don't remember if that was a problem in the other books or not.  I like the idea of the story but I'm not sure the author had written them very well.  From her picture, she seems very young so maybe its just a matter of inexperience?