Format: Print
As the third book in a trilogy, there’s really not much I can say here without it being a spoiler, so I’ll mark the majority of this as spoiler filled, but for anyone who wants to read before the spoilers, I’ll simply say: it was great to be back in this world, and I thought this was a fitting ending to the series. I flew through all 544 pages in 23 hours and it was a solid five-star read for me.
Ok, so on to potential spoilers…
I think my favourite part of this book was all of the relationships that developed. Ok, so we didn’t get a lot of Tessa and Corrick time and they probably could have been reunited earlier (more on this later). But actually, despite being someone who for personal reasons now struggles being alone myself, I am someone who thinks to have a strong relationship you need to spend time apart, and you need to be strong apart. Yes, Corrick was doing all that he could to get back to Tessa (and to Harristan) and Tessa was completely destroyed at the beginning believing Corrick dead but they found ways to survive. And that shows their strength as individuals. And that strength undoubtedly contributes to their relationship and how well they work both apart and together. And yes, I am fully aware I am talking about them as if they are real people.
Given this, I didn’t NEED them to be together for the whole book. I loved seeing the relationships they developed with others: Tessa and Erik Rocco, Tessa and Olive, Corrick and Lochlan. And back home: Harristan and Quint, Harristan and his guards, Harristan and the inhabitants of the Wilds. These relationships made the book in my opinion. They were SO well developed. The side characters didn’t feel like side characters – they felt like friends. I loved seeing how these relationships grew and strengthened.
But what about our three main characters? If I am being honest, Tessa’s storyline was my least favourite. I feel like we missed out on some of that strength and independence we had seen from her in the earlier books. And I felt like she gave in when it came to Rian too easily. Yes, she didn’t forgive and I know she HAD to capitulate believing him her only hope of getting back to Kandala but she CHALLENGED Corrick and I’d like to have seen more of that in her interactions with Rian (who actually we didn’t see a lot of – of all the side characters he was definitely least developed). Corrick’s storyline definitely made the Ostriary scenes for me – largely because of the friendship he developed with Lochlan (who saw that coming?) but also because across the trilogy he’s had the most character growth. And I loved Harristan’s scenes back home – everyone seeing what we as the reader have known all along: his kindheartedness, how much he wants the best for his subjects, that he is genuine and so on.
I also really liked the structure of this book. We follow three POVs (Tessa, Corrick and Harristan). For the majority of the book we stick with a single character for a long period rather than jumping between them from chapter to chapter. This worked really well for me – I enjoyed getting the full picture of what was gong on, and pacing wise this meant when it switched towards the later part of the book that actually built up the pace and tension even more. This does mean (as I mentioned above) that Tessa and Corrick spent a lot of the book apart. In real-time terms, it actually probably wasn’t that long – a few weeks? – and I genuinely didn’t mind it, although I appreciate this meant the first half of the book felt quite slow, and the second half much farther.
And the ending. I can see why some readers have disliked this. But actually, I think this was the perfect ending for the characters. Corrick and Tessa got their happy ending. Harristan and Quint got theirs (and Harristan got to step away from being king and take on a role that suited him much better). Ok, yes, this means Corrick became king in a way that perhaps wasn’t ideal, but actually I think we were always heading in that direction. Corrick’s character growth meant that he was absolutely the ideal choice to be king. Yes, it would have been nice if Harristan had let him know he was alive earlier, but I get why he didn’t.
If I had one real gripe, it’s that I never really felt we got a satisfying conclusion to/explanation of the poisoning storyline. Ok, yes it was explained but I do feel it was kind of glossed over. That part maybe was a bit rushed. But other than that, I LOVED it.