Apex (Hunter #3) by Mercedes Lackey : An Audiobook Review

Being a member of the Elite Hunter Command imperils Joy in more ways than one. In their latest clash with Othersiders, the army of monsters nearly wiped them out. Apex City is safe . . . for now. But within the city barriers, Joy must wage a different kind of war.

The corrupt and powerful PsiCorps is determined to usurp the Hunters as chief defenders of Apex City and Joy is now squarely in their crosshairs. Unused to playing political games, she has very few people she can truly trust—not even Josh, her first friend in Apex City, who broke up with her when it became too dangerous for a Psimon to be dating a Hunter.

Then Josh comes to Joy for help. He fears that Abigail Drift, the head of PsiCorps, will soon use him in her twisted experiments designed to empower PsiCorps and render Hunters superfluous—a scheme that’s already killed off dozens of Psimons. Joy manages to smuggle Josh to safety, but he cannot evade Drift forever . . .

As Joy faces ever more powerful Othersiders, she is helped by the most surprising ally imaginable—the same Folk Mage she once met in battle on the train to Apex City. But can Joy trust the most cunning and treacherous of all Othersiders?’

My feelings on this book are fairly mixed and I’ve been struggling for a few days to write this review so forgive me if it rambles on a bit or if I contradict myself at all in it. Mercedes Lackey has probably been my favorite author for nearly 15 years now and I would have to say that this has been one of the more interesting and unique worlds that she has created in a long time. Unfortunately, I don’t think that Apex was anywhere near as good as the first two books in the series.

Now that’s not to say I think that Apex was a bad book, because I thoroughly enjoyed listening to it and think the audiobook was well worth the purchase. There were just a few aspects of the story that I didn’t enjoy and think really brought the book down in some ways. I know the angsty love story between Joy and Josh was a major part of the last two books but I feel like it was really shoehorned into Apex just to have a romance subplot in the book. I found most of the scenes with Joy and Josh together to be surprisingly boring.

I think the book would have been much better if it had focused less on Joy and Josh and more on Joy, Josh, and the PsiCorps. I also would have enjoyed seeing a bit more of Joy’s new hunting partner Cielle, I loved her character and thought she really brought something to the story. I think what Apex did best was expand upon the information we had on the Hounds and the Others. I loved every hunting scene we got in this book because every time one of the Folk or Joy’s hounds appeared we learned some fascinating new piece of information.

As always I think Amy Landon did an absolutely fantastic job narrating this book and couldn’t imagine listening to anyone else read it. She puts so much energy and emotion into her narration that you can practically feel everything that Joy feels over the course of the book. She’s quickly becoming one of my favorite audiobook narrators.

Aside from the issues I had with this book I still think Apex is a great addition to this series and I can’t wait to see what Mercedes Lackey has in store for Joy and her hounds in the next book!