Sigmund Brower/Hank Hanegraaff

Dear Readers,

This series was one that I had always meant to read books one and two, but just never got around to it.  Sigmound Brower is an interesting author and I have read several of his books.  I was very interested in the historical part of this storyline.  When I found out that book three was not coming out as soon as originally thought I decided to wait and find out what happened to the series before reading the beginning if there was never going to be a conclusion to it. 

Tyndale decided to re-release The Last Disciple and the Last Sacrifice to generate interest in the Last Temple which was the conclusion to the series.  I have heard several people say they could hardly wait to finish the series as they enjoyed the first two so much. 

Being part of Tyndale's blog tour I decided to skip book 1 and 2 and just read the last to see if was necessary to read them in order.  I will say I recommend that you do read the first two to get a good basis for the story, but the authors do a good job a revisiting the storylines that happened before. Maybe that is what was my problem is with the book.  I really got sick of being reminded that if Nero found out Vitas was alive/in Rome then Vitas would be dead.  I was beginning to think two different things about that statement, first - I don't think Vitas could die.  In this series he had been a soldier that had survived several wars, crucifixion and being thrown in the arena.  Secondly - I wondered if the authors thought we readers couldn't remember that for more than 10 pages.

I have a feeling you can already tell where this review is going.  I was not overly impressed with it.  I found the storyline to be almost forced and light.  I kept thinking that Hank and Sigmund were trying to hard to teach us something instead of just telling us a story.  I wanted to like Vitas, but he seemed very shallow and only doing things because he was obligated to. Plus if a character in a book can sound arrogant, Vitas was it.  I never really warmed up to him.

There was a lot of repeating of details and skipping ahead in time.  It almost felt like the authors started the series too early and needed time to pass quickly so they would have Vitas go home and live with his wife for a while, until they needed him again for something.  It was just kind of a strange feel to the story.  I didn't enjoy it and it made for a tough read.  Nothing seemed to flow. 

I hated to say this about this book, but I won't be reading the other two as I am just not that interested. 

Happy Reading