3.5 stars
Spoiler warning! This is the third and final book in the trilogy, and will without a doubt contain spoilers for the earlier books in the series. Don’t read this review if you want to remain unspoiled and aren’t caught up with the previous two books. If you want to start at the beginning, book 1 (by far the best book in the series) is A Promise of Fire.
Cat and her warlord husband Griffin have defeated the rulers of tyrannical Tarva and united two thirds of the ancient realm of Thalyria. Their biggest challenge is still before them, however, with Cat’s absolutely ruthless and megalomaniac mother ruling the third realm of Fisa with an iron fist. She’s the only thing Cat truly fears and she’s not about to let her long estranged daughter and the mortal Cat’s chosen to share her life with topple her from her throne and remove her from power.
Before they can get far enough to mount an offencive against Fisa, it turns out that Cat and Griffin have challenges closer to home. Griffin’s brother is none too happy about how his family’s life has changed since Cat came into their lives and takes drastic steps to try to have her neutralised. It really doesn’t go as he expects, but Griffin is left badly shaken by his betrayal (not to mention the revelation of some of the very, well divine, protectors Cat has had watching over her throughout her life).
Defeating the Queen of Fisa will take everything Cat and Griffin has, and it seems impossible that they are going to manage without losses along the way. It’s quite clear that Cat has gifts from the gods much more powerful and unpredictable than she had been made aware of, but even they won’t be much help if she doesn’t learn to control them properly and get over her childhood terrors and survivor’s guilt once and for all.
Full review on my blog.
I really need to get better at watching my Kindle to make sure my pre-orders download instead of just showing up in my “all” tab without me noticing. I’ve got a Holly Black book and this one, and didn’t even realize it! At least I saw the Red Rising book when it showed up. Thank you so much for the reminder about this novel.
I am enormously disappointed by this series. Book #1 was fun (the sexual tension while captive juuust skirted the line) and I thought this series would rank with Kate Daniels with a kickass protagonist and unique worldbuilding. Book #2 sagged but I wrote it off as middle-book syndrome (although the fact that just about any injury can be cured kills 98% of the dramatic tension). This last book for me is a 2 star meh.
Bouchet has moved from my preorder list to the “maybe if it’s at the library.” Booooo.
The fact that her next series appear to be sci-fi makes her future work a lot less interesting to me. Sci-fi is one of those genres I keep trying and where I very occasionally find something of works for me, but it needs to be pretty exceptional (or just fantasy in space).
Yeah, Ms. Bouchet didn’t live up to her initial promise.