A KILLING FROST brings suitable resolution to some of the wounds and brokenness which have plagued Toby's family, finding those who have lost their way home. It's the culmination of things which have been a long time coming, and what closure we get is the sweeter for it. This is my favorite book in the series so far, surmounting at last my love for AN ARTIFICIAL NIGHT without diminishing it. It has the best possible answer on all fronts to the situation with Simon. It handles the resolution of many things in a way that feels suitably dramatic for how long they've been left lingering, fitting something monumental into a single volume in a way that suits it without making that triumph feel easy. I loved seeing more of May and Spike than we normally do, along with a normal amount of Quentin and a bit of Dean. 

It wraps up something which has been open for a long time. I'm not sure if the main storyline counts as having started in this one, since it is explicitly at attempt to address something that was left broken until now. However, while the reasons for the journey were laid well before this book began, the inciting incident pushing them to address things Right Now was fully within this volume, and this has its own story within the larger saga. It's not the last book and it leaves open a very major thing that definitely needs to actually happen at some point, as well as the various threads from previous books which this was never meant to address since it's not time yet for them. The main character is still Toby, but a few key moments play with what it means to be Toby and the contrast between those sections and the rest of this book (let alone the rest of the series) is stark. Her voice there is distinct from herself, and it's heartbreaking to read. This book would not make sense if someone didn't know about the series. Yes, things are explained as much as possible, but without going back to the last pivot point (I recommend A RED-ROSE CHAIN for this) there's too much history here for it to stand alone if someone found it at random. This is a culmination of many things, some wonderful and some devastating, and it needs that backstory to make sense. A long series needs jumping-on points to anchor newer readers, but this isn't one of them and it doesn't feel like it's meant to be.

This is a damn good book and I'm excited to see what comes next.

THE UNKINDEST TIDE is the story of the Selkies and the Roane, and the broken past that brought them here. It begs to know when will children stop paying for the mistakes of their ancestors.

This is a good resolution to a conundrum that has been hanging over the series since ONE SALT SEA, and over the Luidhaeg for millennia. I've been looking forward to this book for most of the series and I like how it handled things. I'm glad that it takes on a pretty important sidequest, it lets the big important stuff feel focused, not needing to stretch to pad out the whole book. The sidequest was good, it moves some characters around and lets us see more of someone that Toby hasn't really been around at all since she first met him.

This book exists to wrap up a bunch of stuff from earlier books. It does have a storyline which wasn't present previously, which begins and is resolved here. It leaves something pretty big to be resolved later on in the series. The main character hasn't changed. I will note that there are bunch of novellas that fit in the series, some of which have comprised the final parts of various main series books. Toby sounds distinct from those narrators, but in the main series it's all Toby. The middle section of this book would make sense even if you hadn’t read any of the others. But, this book is the culmination of some thing that was first explicitly stated in ONE SALT SEA (book five), and I think someone would need to go back at least as far as A RED-ROSE CHAIN (book nine) in order to have enough grounding for the minimum backstory needed to understand how we got here and why the events matter. Every once in a while there’s a book in the series which exists mostly to be the culmination of things begun earlier. It has its own story but that story has such a complex and important history that it really needs that context in order to have the right emotional weight. The specific plot is explained, but making sense isn't enough to make it feel like it matters if you read this without the context at least a few of the earlier books. 

I've suspected for a while that a certain nearly-magicless character is more than she appears. I don't know if my first suspicions were correct (I thought she might be a traitor, or actually have strong magic and is hiding it), but some conversations happened here that mean I'm very sure something is going on. 

I like what's going on with Toby, love what's going on with Tybalt (healing after trauma is difficult but he seems in a much better place, emotionally). Their relationship is really great, it shows the work, and the way they handle disagreements and hold to necessary boundaries is really heartening to read. I'm always happy to see more of Quentin and Dean (together or separately), and I'm slowly warming to Gillian.

 *Update: I loved this book but did not finish the sequel and do not plan to read the third book at this time. After reading this originally I found out that the premise of the series relies on a bunch of antisemitic tropes. Due to this and the fact that the second book was confusing and I did not enjoy it at all, I do not recommend this book/series. I’ve left my original review intact below. 

If you like magic, blood, forbidden glances over a multitude of wounds (literal and otherwise), beleaguered princes, and a darkly brooding danger boy chased by a conflicted magic girl, read WICKED SAINTS. 

This is one of those books where I loved how it felt to read it, but when I try to list what occurred the intricacies escape me and it feels like only a couple of things actually happened. I think the prince is my favorite character, mostly because his goals make more sense to me personally, but both MC's are cool in different ways. I was a little concerned that the "lovers" part of "enemies to lovers" was happening a bit quickly, but then the book reminded me that it's a trilogy and things have time to get complicated, in this case by means of a dizzying but oddly inevitable ending. 

NIGHT AND SILENCE is a story of loose ends, lost pieces, and forgotten things. So much has changed so completely that it's understandable and natural for a few to have gone astray, to be left behind. But some are not content to be forgotten, deciding instead to take twisted revenge on those who left. It begins broken, shattered in a way that aches beyond description. It's about helplessness, doing the motions when the motions are all that's left because maybe if you do them something will get better. Even that pained calm is broken by terror and blood, by a child in danger, and the strange and winding road to attempt a rescue where the chances of success seem to dwindle with every dead end and false trail. 

This wraps up some very major things left hanging from previous books. The main storyline starts in this book and was not present in the last one. This is definitely pulling from the rest of this saga, but there is a major thing that is introduced and resolved at least for now here. It leaves a bunch of things to be addressed in later books, some of them ones that were started earlier and just not handled here, and some of them newly introduced and requiring more resolution later. The main character didn't change, it's still Toby. Lately she's done a lot more reflecting on how her priorities have shifted, but much of her voice is still the same. About half of the main plot would make sense if someone had just started with this book and didn't know about the rest of the series, but then a little past halfway through it would start to feel like it takes a wild turn into some very strange territory. To anyone who has been following the series, or at the very least started reading it a few books back, it should make a lot of sense and have some much needed catharsis. The first half is very focused on resolving this book and the immediate problems, but the true ending of this story delves into some things present since the very start of the series, and its very last moments are an emotional response to what happened in THE BRIGHTEST FELL. That book broke a lot of people, then NIGHT AND SILENCE came along to make sure that they don't quite get time to rest, but must instead claim peace where they can because it won't come easily. 

This has an interesting place in the flow of the series because while the plot is engaging it's one that makes me want to re-read all the other books because it feels like there were clues I missed before. It has its own story, but most of the emotional weight of it relies on knowing which metaphorical shoes were waiting to drop. Even the main plot matters so much more if you know everything it took to be here. That's how this kind of series works (and for me is what I love about series novels), but for everything this resolves it leaves behind something at least as interesting in its place for late books to tackle. It makes each book feel like a ship of Theseus, where it always wraps up something, starts something new, and has a piece of its own, for at least a little while before that too is mostly remembered for how it's built upon by later entries in a new and wonderful way. 

I liked getting Gillian's perspective, but most of this felt like telling a new person stuff that we've learned elsewhere about Faerie. It's fine, and I'm glad I read it, but it's probably not one that's essential if you have trouble finding it. It does answer what happened when Toby wasn't around in the main story, so that was nice.

THE BRIGHTEST FELL pushes Toby, robbing her of things held most dear, then challenging her to lose even more for their return. Gathering up the jagged edges of things left unfinished, some perhaps beyond hope of repair.

This is a journey book, and it's been a while since we truly had one of those. Oh she's traveled in the others, often extensively between the various knowes, but this kind of journey is different and refreshing. I would say it's nice to see Toby in this kind of strange setting, but it's not nice, per se, it's a cruel position that she's in. However it is a bit unsettling in a good way to see her without her usual help, on stranger roads than to which she has recently been accustomed, and with an even odder traveling companion by virtue of uneasy peace. Some of the more recent books had begun to feel like every solution would involve Tybalt and the shadow roads, so breaking that pattern and returning to a cadence reminiscent of the early books was nice. I particularly love one of the places that is revisited here. It was the scene of my favorite book in the series so far, and seeing how it has changed since then was very welcome, even as it distressed the characters to return. The treatment of the Luidaeg is especially good here. The series has been walking a careful road between having her help Toby and maintaining her well-deserved reputation as the monster under Faerie's metaphorical bed. There's something especially cruel in getting what you wish for at a price you can only technically afford, and this story uses that to great effect. The last book offered an utterly reprehensible villain, here we have someone who has been decidedly villainous in the past, but is finally making good on the inklings of decency we’ve recently glimpsed. I love this complexity, Toby has had a long time to hate him, and wherever she ends up on the matter, the journey is fascinating. We also get to see two people whose existence have been teased for a while, both someone Toby knew well and someone she never had the opportunity to meet. 

This wraps up something major that was left hanging from previous books, and addresses even more that has been a mystery in the background since the start of the series. The main storyline starts in this book and was not present in any of the previous ones. That thing is introduced and resolved here, though not necessarily happily. It leaves a lot to be addressed in later books, the way this both resolves its own plot line and opens up so much more to handle later is really well done and I liked it a lot. The main character didn't change, at least she didn't change who she is, but the way she thinks about some things is altered during the book in a way that makes her reflect on the way she moves through the world. I think this would make sense if you started here and didn't know any of the other books, as long as this was not your introduction to Faerie. If ONCE BROKEN FAITH was an inflection point, THE BRIGHTEST FELL is transformative. It has this great balance between being self contained and reminding us of all the places we've been before, which makes it an okay place to happen upon the series randomly (though I do think that A RED-ROSE CHAIN or ONCE BROKEN FAITH would be better places to jump in than this). 

This beautifully addresses some past hurts long lingering, and is a welcome tale in the series. I like the way April uses a unique blend of idioms and reference points to see things differently from how Toby does. 

DREAMS AND SLUMBERS is a great addendum to ONCE BROKEN FAITH, best read immediately afterwards. It's nice to see things from a new perspective in the series, and to see how some familiar characters behave when Toby isn't around. Definitely worth reading if you can find it, but I don't think it's crucial if you can't.