Arwen is definitely, at this point, the weakest of Buroker's leads. Starblade is Starblade--he's a carbon copy of Zav and Sarrlevi, to be honest. But it feels that each subsequent heroine is another step down from Val.
Arwen doesn't have a powerful weapon, for one, and constantly flounders in the numerous action scenes. Her series quest is to remove her tattoo, which allows the dark elves to control her. While in theory this sounds compelling, the execution and the handling of the dark elves is so poor that it ends up feeling purposeless. In fact, she removes the tattoo this book--and instead of emotional payoff of any kind, we get a random comment about her arm hair falling out. If you had your free will continuously squashed, forced to attack your allies and friends, forced to almost kill your own father--wouldn't you react with profound relief, perhaps even cry, upon being freed from this situation? It didn't make any fucking sense.
And there still hasn't been any nuanced discussion about the dark elves!!!!!! Are we honestly to believe that an entire race is just, inherently evil??? Is the rancid subtext of that not obvious or troubling to Buroker??? I'm baffled.
On the other hand, and I am not joking, reading these books is better than taking Nyquil. When I say it knocks me out within ten minutes, I'm serious. If you see these reviews and you're like, "okay, so just stop reading," I understand, but know that my chronic insomnia doesn't. It's almost a miracle how easily I sleep thanks to these.