This is book three of a completed trilogy. I reviewed the previous two books, A DARKER SHADE OF MAGIC and A GATHERING OF SHADOWS. If you don't want anything spoiled about the fist two books, I recommend not reading this review. It's about to get real.
To the tune of final countdown: It's the final booooook NA NA NAAA NAAAA NA NA NUH NA NAAAAAA
An amazon summary, "As darkness sweeps the Maresh Empire, the once precarious balance of power among the four Londons has reached its breaking point.
In the wake of tragedy, Kell―once assumed to be the last surviving Antari―begins to waver under the pressure of competing loyalties. Lila Bard, once a commonplace―but never common―thief, has survived and flourished through a series of magical trials. But now she must learn to control the magic, before it bleeds her dry.
An ancient enemy returns to claim a city while a fallen hero tries to save a kingdom in decay. Meanwhile, the disgraced Captain Alucard Emery of the Night Spire collects his crew, attempting a race against time to acquire the impossible." AMAZON LINK OF JUSTICE
Time for some fun gross over-summarization of this book, because I want to talk about how I felt about the series. So here we go.
At the end of A Gathering of Shadows, the specter from black london which escaped into white london has now entered into red london. The specter has started to take over red london. It's seeking a stronger host than Holland, namely Kell, but Kell refuses. So, the specter is like AH-HA, to Red London we go! And everyone else is like, "CRAP CRAP CRAP!" The specter goes after magicians who competed in the tournament and their bodies essentially vaporize. Then the specter is like, WHATEVS and goes into the river. And everyone is kind of like, "....is that it? Nahhh, that can't be it." Then Hastra pops up and is like YO, THE CITY HAS FALLEN. And everyone is like, "AHHHHH" and they go to the windows of the palace to see a dark cloud descend over the city. The specter is also called Osaron (hi, I just looked at the book to see where the 33%ish percent mark is). Anyways, so Osaron starts infecting the city, forcing people to die in the river, get dusted, or like become his mind slaves kind of thing. BUT, it turns out that the Antari blood repels Osaron. So Kell and Lila (surprise, she's Antari - if you didn't figure that out at this point, shame on you), run around and basically kind of blood dab people to repel Osaron's control. They go into the palace where the king essentially corrals everyone into forming some sort of a plan. The monks have raised a magical barrier around the palace to shield everyone inside. So then, Alucard is there, and he's like NOOO, MAH SISTER, ANGUISH, and he runs out into the black cloud to find her. Lila is like, bloody hell, and runs out after Alucard to find him. Also, Holland is down in the prison because.... you know, he was the carrier of Osaron. Anyways, so we also get snippets of Holand's backstory (which were really compelling) and everyone discusses how to defeat Osaron.
You know, that's just enough summary.
So first things first, the book is like, hey, you should totally care about Rhy's parents, Emira and Maxim, who didn't really serve a purpose up until this point besides to corral Kell and Rhy's wanderings. BUT NOW, OH NO, we are supposed to care about them. We get backstory about Maxim for the first time, we gets bits about Emira, and like I know why, but it makes me mad. Like, you should have made me care all series rather than just now. C'mon.
Don't get me wrong, I LOVE the book, but that bit still makes me mad. Unreasonably. It's fine.
So, Alucard and Lila remain great, Kell is still there doing his noble martyr thing, and then along comes Holland. Holland was just like......freaking epic. So, we like the other characters and everything, but like Holland, you just get such a better more complete understanding of everything that brought him to this point. I just ended up liking him so much more, and his ending within the story was so like GRAHHHHH, eye rolling, but fine, how else would you have wrapped things up for him.
The book did do one of those semi-terrible things where it's like, you know what, here's an epilogue. On one hand, I will always appreciate some kind of closure. On the complete other hand, I turn into this hypercritical weirdo. In my mind, a good epilogue should include an aspect of the villain of the story; it should have something where the main conflict has had lingering, echoing effects that still have to be addressed. A good epilogue gives you just enough about a character's life that hints that they are now leading a life that may satisfy them based on their previous needs/wants brought up earlier in the books/series. HOWEVER, it does not tell you too much where you know exactly how well they're doing in life. A good epilogue should also kind of tie up any lingering loose threads. ...but it also shouldn't contain anything that completely changes how you look at a character/what you know about them.
This book, it mostly succeeded at a good epilogue. I know the final section is titled Anoshe (which means farewell of sorts in Arnesian, which sidenote, I REALLY loved all the language play in these books which I think I've failed to talk about until this point), but STILL. So like, you've probably figured it out by now, the main reason I'm mad at the epilogue is because of how they dealt with Holland in the end. It's very.... grating.
Anyways.
It was a solid trilogy. I loved it. It was great to read it once it was all done. I honestly think if I had read them as they were released, I suspect I would have loved book 1, been so annoyed with book 2 that I would threaten not to read book 3 to the point where I wouldn't pick up book 3 unless it was right in front of me... and then would have stumbled across book 3 at some point and read it. It was worth the read.
Happy reading!
At the end of A Gathering of Shadows, the specter from black london which escaped into white london has now entered into red london. The specter has started to take over red london. It's seeking a stronger host than Holland, namely Kell, but Kell refuses. So, the specter is like AH-HA, to Red London we go! And everyone else is like, "CRAP CRAP CRAP!" The specter goes after magicians who competed in the tournament and their bodies essentially vaporize. Then the specter is like, WHATEVS and goes into the river. And everyone is kind of like, "....is that it? Nahhh, that can't be it." Then Hastra pops up and is like YO, THE CITY HAS FALLEN. And everyone is like, "AHHHHH" and they go to the windows of the palace to see a dark cloud descend over the city. The specter is also called Osaron (hi, I just looked at the book to see where the 33%ish percent mark is). Anyways, so Osaron starts infecting the city, forcing people to die in the river, get dusted, or like become his mind slaves kind of thing. BUT, it turns out that the Antari blood repels Osaron. So Kell and Lila (surprise, she's Antari - if you didn't figure that out at this point, shame on you), run around and basically kind of blood dab people to repel Osaron's control. They go into the palace where the king essentially corrals everyone into forming some sort of a plan. The monks have raised a magical barrier around the palace to shield everyone inside. So then, Alucard is there, and he's like NOOO, MAH SISTER, ANGUISH, and he runs out into the black cloud to find her. Lila is like, bloody hell, and runs out after Alucard to find him. Also, Holland is down in the prison because.... you know, he was the carrier of Osaron. Anyways, so we also get snippets of Holand's backstory (which were really compelling) and everyone discusses how to defeat Osaron.
You know, that's just enough summary.
So first things first, the book is like, hey, you should totally care about Rhy's parents, Emira and Maxim, who didn't really serve a purpose up until this point besides to corral Kell and Rhy's wanderings. BUT NOW, OH NO, we are supposed to care about them. We get backstory about Maxim for the first time, we gets bits about Emira, and like I know why, but it makes me mad. Like, you should have made me care all series rather than just now. C'mon.
Don't get me wrong, I LOVE the book, but that bit still makes me mad. Unreasonably. It's fine.
So, Alucard and Lila remain great, Kell is still there doing his noble martyr thing, and then along comes Holland. Holland was just like......freaking epic. So, we like the other characters and everything, but like Holland, you just get such a better more complete understanding of everything that brought him to this point. I just ended up liking him so much more, and his ending within the story was so like GRAHHHHH, eye rolling, but fine, how else would you have wrapped things up for him.
The book did do one of those semi-terrible things where it's like, you know what, here's an epilogue. On one hand, I will always appreciate some kind of closure. On the complete other hand, I turn into this hypercritical weirdo. In my mind, a good epilogue should include an aspect of the villain of the story; it should have something where the main conflict has had lingering, echoing effects that still have to be addressed. A good epilogue gives you just enough about a character's life that hints that they are now leading a life that may satisfy them based on their previous needs/wants brought up earlier in the books/series. HOWEVER, it does not tell you too much where you know exactly how well they're doing in life. A good epilogue should also kind of tie up any lingering loose threads. ...but it also shouldn't contain anything that completely changes how you look at a character/what you know about them.
This book, it mostly succeeded at a good epilogue. I know the final section is titled Anoshe (which means farewell of sorts in Arnesian, which sidenote, I REALLY loved all the language play in these books which I think I've failed to talk about until this point), but STILL. So like, you've probably figured it out by now, the main reason I'm mad at the epilogue is because of how they dealt with Holland in the end. It's very.... grating.
Anyways.
It was a solid trilogy. I loved it. It was great to read it once it was all done. I honestly think if I had read them as they were released, I suspect I would have loved book 1, been so annoyed with book 2 that I would threaten not to read book 3 to the point where I wouldn't pick up book 3 unless it was right in front of me... and then would have stumbled across book 3 at some point and read it. It was worth the read.
Happy reading!
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