Another wonderful installment to an incredible series. CC is still my favorite of Maas's works at this time, and House of Flame and Shadow reaffirmed that.

I won't spend too much time diving in as there are thousands of other that will give you the synopsis and why this book is so fantastic. Instead I'll discuss a couple of my favorite key scenes and topics.

I had suspected Lidia to be a descendant of Brannon early on, but to have to confirmed was a whole thing. I was screaming and giddy and so incredibly excited. I might have teared up a little too if I'm being honest. I was glad we got to see more from Lidia's POV as I didn't feel much connection with her in HOSAB.

From the beginning I was hoping she would be the one to kill Pollux. Had she not it would have ruined everything. My qualm is that I wish it had been a bit more graphic (and we now know she can write graphic scenes).

Speaking of graphic scenes...yikes. "How hard is your bite?" To my knowledge she hasn't ever written anything that dark and I am hoping this means she will be more open to doing so in the future. Maas is excellent with her descriptions, but even one (and yes I know I write horror but it still bothers me) I had to set it down and take a minute. The sheer desperation was something else.

Knowing that Bryce was in Pythian I half suspected the Valkyrie to swoop in on pegasus. When they showed them on the cave walls I was even more convinced. Because....you can't have the Valkyrie without their flying steeds (based on Norse mythology). That being said, maybe that means we will get to see them in the ACOTAR series later on if they're gifted by Helion or something. Or perhaps Bryce will be the one to aid them with pegasus of her own. Who knows...just a bunch of rambling thoughts I have.

What I didn't like:
1. That we got to see more of Baxian only for him to not be included anywhere in the second half of the book. I hated that. Ruhn shooting Lidia because honestly, that wasn't necessary either.

2. The way Bryce treated Hunt when she returned was atrocious. And while I get she has this cool girl front to put on, that she didn't run to Hunt was beyond me when she first got on the ship. Her treatment of him, telling him he needed to get over himself was absolutely horrible, though.

3. The battle and ending itself was anticlimactic. It felt like the story wrapped up too easily and this is why I'm really hoping there is a fourth book but also....there's no real evil or problem to solve.

4. Ithan and Tharion were absolute problems. I know we had to read about them in this book, but I didn't care for the direction their characters went. It was just one issue after the next and nothing ever gets resolved.

All in all, I did truly enjoy this book, but compared to the first two it fell a bit flat. Which is why I changed my five start review to a four.