Ethan Wate was a Gatlin native, living in the house that had belonged to the Wate family for generations. In his town, he knew everyone, their history that mixed well with his own, until you started to believe the whole town was related. That’s when when tragedy struck the Wate family, a car crash killing his mother. Everyone in town brought cookies and casseroles for him and his father, to help them through their loss. Maybe, knowing everyone’s history, and they all knowing his mother, made Lena special. Her ballerina skirts, black messy hair, converse and arms always covered in pen, made Ethan drop his preppy boy ways, to join her. It was not just physically Lena looked different, she was a caster (a type of witch) and was counting down the days for her claiming ceremony (her sixteenth birthday) where she would choose between light or dark, and along with that decision killing the side of her family she does not choose. With Ethan’s and her family help Lena pushed off her, claiming ceremony to her seventeenth birthday, a day that gets closer with each passing breath.

Ethan knew what Lena was going through, sort of. Standing by her side at Macon’s funeral, he remembered his mom, and how even today he still feels her lost. Ethan had Link to turn to, thus Ethan wanted to be that for Lena, but she is not letting him. Instead she hides away, in denial of her grief, blaming herself for Macon’s death.  Physically Ethan and Lena could not be together. As her magic will literally burn him up, an event, Ethan notice each time they kiss. Still, he was determined that, like his mother, he had a role in the Caster world, in Lena’s life, a spot he is not willing to give up easily. Ridley is back along with a hottie who has eyes for Lena, leading Lena in a darker way. Where Ethan still wants to see his green eye Lena, he gets distracted by blue eye Liv, Ethan decides to trust faith, that puts Liv, Link and his own life in mortal danger.

If to say this story will make you like Ethan more, you are dead wrong. Where Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl try to make it look like Ethan is fighting for Lena, what he is actually doing is not letting her go. Ethan does love Lena, he shows that over and over again, but if she does not want to be with him, why does he force himself on her? Still Ethan would do anything for his L, and thus going on a life endangering mission to save Lena not from Ridley, or from the boy, but herself. It was a nice touch when Garcia and Stohl bring in history, connecting the dots on a few things you might not have guessed. The story continues on, revealing a deeper plot point, and after the seventeenth moon falls, it is the countdown to moon eighteen.