Thank you to NetGalley for an eARC in exchange for an honest review

I couldn't decide whether or not I wanted to talk about the Raven Cycle in this review for ages but have ultimately decided that I can't avoid it. That series is everything to me, each time I've read it I feel I've discovered something new about my reading tastes and all of those characters are very close to my heart. I find that often Stiefvater's characters come across so well because of the level of seemingly irrelevant detail that goes into them - how a guy tucks in his shirt or how a girl looks across a room when she first walks in - that then turns out to be the damning nail in the coffin for the most heart-wrenching character analysis you've ever read.

I don't know if I'm explaining that very well, but just want to try and express how unique her writing style is. So I knew, even as a pulled myself slowly and carefully through the first half of this novel, that even if I didn't end up being convinced by the plot the writing would win me over without a doubt. And, to my delight, this is almost exactly how my reading experience went. The setting of this novel is the Appalachian mountains during World War II, and I knew already going into this novel that historical fiction (even historical magical realism) is not usually my cup of tea. However, I was beyond curious to see what this new project would entail!

This feels like an increasingly rambling review all to say that I found it a slow moving novel and I thought I felt largely indifferent about the large cast of characters until the 70% mark when I realised that actually I cared so deeply about all of them that I couldn't put the book down and felt like someone had punched a hole in my chest once I'd finished. Luckily I had a whole train journey to sit and stare out the window dramatically as I reflected on it.