Horde by Ann Aguirre
Series:Razorland #3
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Source: Gift
ISBN: 9781250024633
Release Date: October 29, 2013
Pages: 422
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The horde is coming.
Salvation is surrounded, monsters at the gates, and this time, they're not going away. When Deuce, Fade, Stalker and Tegan set out, the odds are against them. But the odds have been stacked against Deuce from the moment she was born. She might not be a Huntress anymore, but she doesn't run. With her knives in hand and her companions at her side, she will not falter, whether fighting for her life or Fade's love.
Ahead, the battle of a lifetime awaits. Freaks are everywhere, attacking settlements, setting up scouts, perimeters, and patrols. There hasn't been a war like this in centuries, and humans have forgotten how to stand and fight. Unless Deuce can lead them.
This time, however, more than the fate of a single enclave or outpost hangs in the balance. This time, Deuce carries the banner for the survival of all humanity.
Allegiant and Horde were my most anticipated finales of 2013 and I was not disappointed with Horde in one bit. While I may have given Allegiant four stars it may not have been that solid four star that it deserved, but Horde deserves every single one of these five stars. From the beginning to the end I loved every page of it. It had that right balance of plot to action ratio that can be hard to come by.
Horde picks up with Deuce and her crew trying to save Salvation with reinforcements only to be too late. It was a hard part of the book to read, but set the scene for the remainder of the book. Deuce is determined to build her own army to fight the freaks. She takes her small group and goes town to town to invite people to fight. She is laughed at, ignored, threatened to be executed at some of the towns. Despite all this Deuce forges onward and realigns her mission. While this might have stopped some it doesn’t with Deuce. Deuce is a leader even if she doesn’t believe it.
Horde is filled with non-stop action. It doesn’t give you a lot of time to stop and assess what just happened you just keep forging ahead. After reading the book I read the author’s note about how she did endless research on what a ground war would be like and used the American Civil War for research. You can completely get the feel of the constant battles and the final scene in the war and how it was endless.
Deuce has changed so much since her time in the tunnels. If you took the two and put them next to each other you wouldn’t recognize them as the same girl. She has grown and is starting to understand people. She has this wonderful extended family that keeps growing as she finds others who need a family too. She lets herself be vulnerable and knows it’s okay to not have to be strong all the time, but at the same time knew when to be strong for her troops.
Fade is still a mystery. He is suffering from PTSD after being taken by the horde. He fears being touched by people and Deuce realizes this and doesn’t push him. She helps him along the way and is patient with him. You don’t get to see a lot of what makes him that way, but you see the love he has for Deuce and that he is willing to follow her anywhere.
This was a perfect ending to the series. When I closed that final page, I was satisfied, and not many series can give me that type of closure. I always have some sort of issue with the last book in a series, but not with this one. If I had to pick one thing it was the epilogue. I could have done without it, but at the same time I still like seeing the characters when they were old and grey fulfilling Deuce’s vision of the future for her family.
