If you're interested in Hugh as a character, or if you just like reading books in this world, I actually recommend reading Iron & Magic before this one. It's not that there's overlap in the story, but it will add to the context of what is going on in this book.

This entire book could have been about baby Conlan's shenanigans and I would have been here for it. Getting to see Curran and Kate as parents was a lot of fun, and honestly not what I was expecting from the final installment.

I love this series as a whole. It's definitely one where the sum is much better than the individual parts.  The last time I tried to read a series this long was more than 10 years ago, and I loved getting to spend so much time with these characters.  I would argue that my level of enjoyment makes the Kate Daniels series a favourite, even though only one of the books actually got 5 stars. But this ending does have issues. It feels like the authors set up a certain structure, only to spend the last book pulling a magic rabbit out of a hat so they can circumvent it after all. It's not that I ever doubted that this would end happily (it is romance, after all), I just didn't expect it to happen like this.

I think this could've benefited from being longer. There's a super rushed "will you marry me, yes I will" on the battlefield for two characters that deserved more, and that's just one example. But I still enjoyed this so, so much.