I honestly don't like Evie that much - probably a major part of that is that I barely liked Jack in the first book and then eventually grew to really dislike him - but I find the rest of the series extremely interesting and unique among all the other YA novels. I especially like the entire concept of the Arcana and the way they have such a rich history of alliances, friendship, enmity, and betrayals. 
 I really, really HATE the love triangle and I think that is the weakest part of the whole series. If not for Aric, I would not have continued to read this series despite no matter fascinating I thought the storyline with the Arcana could become. If you go back and read the reviews on Poison Princess, you'll see how many people dropped the series right off the bat because Jack was such an ass. Does his character improve over Book 1? Well, sort of. I mean, you get a better understanding of how he became the way he is, but I just was never sold on his stereotypical poor-Cajun-boy-from-the-bayou sob story. Somehow it felt so overdone to me that the sympathy it was supposed to elicit mostly dried up. 
 Aric's sympathetic sob story is to a large extent just as overdone and of course he was the villain when he was introduced, but in a way, that was what actually sold me on his character. The fact that Evie fought him, that they match each other in the lengths that they'll go to protect the ones they love, that they have a complicated history that's volatile, passionate, and destructive - maybe this is the "bad boy" appeal, but I honestly think there's more to explore with him than with Jack. His character development has more depth and is more interesting. 
 Either way, I would have liked Evie a lot more if she had actually chosen NEITHER of them and had chosen herself. What was that one quote again? Something like, if you can't tell which one you love more, you don't deserve either... Now, don't get me wrong, I've written a menage a trois before and I'm not the kind to be closeminded about the possibility of loving more than one person, even at the same time, but when it's done badly like this for a YA love triangle, it just feels like it cheapen ALL the relationships involved. Even as an Aric fan, I can't be fully comfortable in the relationship in Arcana Rising because Cole's constantly putting in hints about how the other shoe is about to drop - Jack is still alive (and Aric may or may not know this), Evie's relationship with Aric is alternately escapism, fake, and/or some selfless make-him-happy complex, she commits but still refuses to commit (the ring), and all along you know you're just waiting for Evie to find out that Jack is still alive. Not to mention it seems like Aric is probably draining Evie of power. 
 So where can the author go from here that would actually make me happy? I don't know. Even with two more books to go, I'm not sure if I have faith in Cole because I have a feeling she'll drag out the triangle right up until the end. We're at book four and I think I could say that we could've been at book 3 if Cole had only cut out the endless dithering that Evie does over her love life so that we can get back to, let's see, surviving in a post apocalyptic world while in a mystical fight to the death. 
 Most likely, I think this will end with Aric sacrificing himself for Evie and Evie ending up with Jack. Let me explain why... 
 IMO, when the writer purposely creates two camps of fans and drags this out, the only thing that's a guarantee is that no one will be happy by the end of the series - whether the author pulls a Charlaine Harris and picks the third choice, or a Laurell K. Hamilton and ends up with a male harem, or follows in the footsteps of the many authors who resorted to the cheap tactic of trying to satisfy both sides by a) never choosing or b) splitting time. 
 In the end, I can't really let myself enjoy this series because I can't shake off the feeling that I'm going to end up hating it. I might be influenced by the fact that I just recently finished the Vampire Knight manga, which honestly had the worst love triangle of all my experiences, and the manga artist basically wrote herself into a dead end with both the triangle AND the actual plotline, so the rushed ending was a total joke. The love triangle in Vampire Knight is pretty similar to the one in The Arcana Chronicles: 
 1. the girl is/could be powerful in her own right but honestly does not make good use of her powers 
 2. there is the rough, uncultured guy character who is her close friend and protector. He's a vampire hunter. He's passionate and acts on his feelings, he's a natural leader and becomes the head of the vampire hunters' association 
 3. there is the cultured, extremely high status/powered vampire who has lived for literally thousands of years and has a long, romantic history with the girl, to the point that they are engaged. He's calm, calculating, manipulative, but also devoted. He has been lonely for eons and is tired of life, he's attracted to the girl's affinity to "light". 
 The girl has a divided heart (yes, you get the exact same explicit descriptions of "half of my heart" or "love them equally") and due to the mythology of the world, neither guy can EVER be happy with someone else other than her. It's her or nothing. Nor will they share, although the guys eventually work out a begrudging respect. The manga creator ironically united the fandom in how much everyone hated the ending because she tried to go the never choosing/splitting time route. What I mean is, the Aric & Evie characters hook up suddenly after over a year of dancing around the subject, then shortly afterward Aric sacrifices his life, thus putting him out of the running so that Evie can get together with Jack. A thousand years later, Jack's dead from old age or whatever, Evie gives up her own life to bring back the Aric guy to give him a new shot at happiness or some such thing (it honestly makes even less sense in the context of that world). Oh, and to top it all off, from the one night hookup, Evie has one kid from Aric and eventually has another kid with Jack. 
 So basically the author tried to make it so that Aric fans and Jack fans both had something and Evie truly loved them both equally, even to the point that each guy had one kid with her. All of this became so important that the original plotline about the war between the vampires and the humans/hunters was never even resolved, the "sacrifice" by Aric somehow magically took care of it, even though it made no sense whatsoever. 
 Everyone hated the crap out of that ending and I feel like The Arcana Chronicles might end up with something similar. 
 Anyway, given this recent experience - a love triangle dragged out for nearly a decade in the readers' years - and the striking similarities to the Aric/Evie/Jack triangle, you can see why I just can't let myself enjoy these books that much. I don't want to love something only to hate it in the end.