Phewwwwww. I am exhausted. That ending was - wow.  The ending just gutted me and also shocked me and I AM SO READY FOR THE NEXT ONE NOW PLEASE!! These characters were so good and complicated and the banter was perfection.  ST did an amazing job showing how easily desperation and horrible circumstances can turn someone into a person they nor you recognize. Are the characters irredeminable or is there hope?! You are on the edge of your seat trying to find out.

  It was especially poignant in the current world climate, and historically representative of how someone could follow a "deity" with good intentions that quickly turns into destroying everything and everyone in your path with no remorse and forgetting your humanity. The lime from Quill about the wrongness of destroying someone else's home just to find your own hit especially hard.

I found the pacing to be a bit on the slower side at times so just be prepared, especially if you read the previous series and expect to jump bang into action. There is a lot of great world building; I love seeing and learning more about the different lands and cultures and magic. The writing was just as beautiful as expected and the imagery poignant the entire time.

You CAN read this as a standalone series without reading the Ember series before, BUT I highly recommend you do because you emotional connection to this world and especially the previous trio of characters will be a huge factor in this story (IMHO).

Audiobook note: I listened to the audiobook and HIGHLY recommend it.  It is multi-narrator and each does an incredible job bringing these complex characters to life.

Thanks to the publisher for a free audiobook copy; my review and thoughts are my own.