The Chosen was a book I was probably less excited than some people as I was never convinced about Xcor and Layla, and sadly I was disappointed in this instalment. The whole series seems to have lost a little bit of the edge for me and the spark - the first books had lots of humour and camaraderie between the BDB and kick-ass actions. In this one there was very little- likely because we focus on Xcor and the Band of Bastards. However, I felt like we barely saw any of Phury (he's barely appeared since his own book), where was Z, Rhevenge, Rhage, John Matthews? None of these characters even really appeared. Never mind the women in the book. The main characters we had were V, Blay, Qhuinn, Layla, Wrath, Xcor to focus on. Then those that were not in the main spotlight only had drama inserted into their relationships, so overall I found it a little frustrating.

What I did like was how Layla's character seemed to grow in strength and develop across this book. It wasn't as strong as I would have liked, but we have definitely seen a big arc from her first entrance in the BDB series. Layla became her own character in this book and she really stood up for what and who she believed in and I really liked that.

There were some big plot twists in this book and some big undercurrents going through the book that makes me feel like Ward is building up to something big. I also really liked some of the plot twists and I want to follow up on more of those.

I really, really want a Lassiter book now we had that bomb shell about him because I feel like there is so much to uncover about him

. However, I equally feel like she's spending less time on the BDB books for her other interests and I would rather wait whilst she develops the stories out, rather than add what seems to be "filler" storylines to keep the series going.

The main reason for rating this book as lower is because it just didn't feel as good as the early BDB books. Overall, I did enjoy it and I will be reading the next book at some point soon. I felt the first half of the book was much stronger, and the ending seemed much more rushed compared to some of Ward's early BDB books where she really developed the storyline out and wrote in much more detailed. A tad disappointed, but still hopeful for the BDB series.