I’m having trouble putting together my spoiler-free thoughts about this book, even several days AFTER finishing it. My main message to anyone reading this is: if you love your fantasy BIG, packed with morally grey characters, underground revolutions to overthrow empires, and teeming with an amazing magic system — this series is for you. PICK UP the first book in the series (The Final Strife) and read the first two books in this trilogy before the final installment releases later this fall! You won’t regret it!

We start with a creative recap of The Final Strife’s major events — the perfect way to jog my awful memory of the people, places, and things we last encountered. Readers are quickly reintegrated and immersed in the lives of our main female characters: Sylah, Anoor, and Hassa. They all remain relatively separate in this installment, meaning we get to watch their individual stories and adventures unfold. I loved watching the characters shift and grow (not always for the better), but Hassa’s storyline this time around was my favorite. I felt that my understanding of her was greatly expanded, and I’m eager to see how she continues to develop.

Each woman encounters seemingly impossible challenges, we slowly uncover layer after layer of histories and storylines, and the ending was quite a doozy. Though it was sometimes difficult to keep details and secondary characters straight, I kept wanting to read another chapter. And the cliff-hanger ending had me slamming the preorder button for the next book almost immediately. And seriously, fall can’t come quickly enough! I desperately need to know how everything is going to come together and resolve!