I finished this book a few weeks ago, and I think I’ve finally puzzled out my thoughts enough to write them down lol.

I’ll start out by saying that I primarily listened to this whole series on audiobook, which really colored my enjoyment. I don’t feel like the narrator was a good fit for this series, and her narration made the prose a lot more irritating than it might have been just reading words on the page. Bennet uses a lot of repetition, especially in dialogue “Yes, Yes, yes, over and over again Yes,” But to be fair, I don’t think I would have noticed if it hadn’t been for the narrator, so I’m not holding it entirely against the book. I also struggled with the pacing in this book. I had a good time in the beginning, and then the middle just dragged onnnnnnn, and then probably the last 30% had me hooked again. Again, that might just be because I had an issue with the narrator. 

Despite this, I still adored the characters and worldbuilding from the first book so much that I had to continue. I will sing this series’ praise any day for the amount of care and attention every single part of the worldbuilding got. Even now, as the stakes are higher than ever and the world is so fundamentally changed from Shorefall, every bit of it makes logical sense. Scriving is such a fascinating magic system that forces the main characters to be constantly scheming and evolving. It’s a joy to read (though it would be even better if the author didn’t feel the need to overexplain every single part of every single device or plan, but I still enjoyed it nonetheless.)

Sancia, Clef, and Gregor have been standout characters to me this entire series. Shorefall night had me gagged, literally screaming as I read the ending, so I was so excited to go into this book. The tension built up was wonderful, there was this horrid air of defeat and death… and then there’s a seven year timeskip that completely cuts all the tension. I understand why it was done, but I feel the author uses these time skips as a way to not actually have to develop Sancia and Berenice’s relationship on the page. The actual progression of the world over that time is fascinating, and it’s interesting to see how the main pair have evolved and grown as leaders and characters, but I was really rubbed the wrong way by Berenice being the main POV of this book. She’s a fine character, sure, but I never felt as connected to her as I did to Sancia, as she has literally been the main focus for the last two books. So as good (and long) as the opening sequence was, I didn’t feel connected to really anything other than interest at how Tevanne has grown as an antagonistic force. Especially since new characters are added to fill out the cast who I just never really vibes with. That’s probably just me, but I’m too attached to the core cast to really care about anyone else.

Tevanne is good. Tevanne is horrifying.

Gregor being Tevanne’s host is so so juicy and agonizing and hurtful.

Perfect. No notes. But this whole book really had me pining for Sancia and Clef, and while they were definitely still main parts of the book, I only continued through Berenice’s bits to get to their parts or to get more information about Gregor, character of all time.

The heist bit didn’t really feel like a heist? The first two books really did, but this was more like. I don’t even know what to call it. The heist was such a small part it felt like, and I feel like it lost a lot of that original charm. I love a fantasy heist, and it’s the whole reason I started this series, so I was a bit bummed about that, though it’s nothing I outright hate.

I commend the author for attempting a story of this scope, I know I wouldn’t have any idea how to handle something like this. The ending is good! Really good! Bittersweet, yet it wraps up everything, yet it’s also delightfully open ended. The wrap up to Clef’s storyline feels so earned, especially since we’ve been wondering about exactly who he is for 3 books. Sancia gets to be the protagonist again, Berenice is being genius Berenice, it’s a very good climax and ending. It would have been really easy to fumble it at the last moment and he didn’t, and it’s mostly the reason why I didn’t rate this book lower. It did get a little too high concept for me at the end, but whatever. I can go with it.

There is one glaring issue to me with the ending, though, one that stopped it from being a 4 or even 5 star read:

There’s no Goddamn Gregor in this book. The main driving force for me going into this book was to see Gregor saved, or to see if some other tragic fate might befall him. He gets his own ending wrapped up, technically, but it’s localized entirely to the epilogue. We barely hear about him or from him for the entire book. I understand that after 7 years the characters might have moved on, but it hasn’t been 7 years for the reader. I was really disappointed by the abruptness of his ending. It felt more like a disservice to a character that we spent a lot of time getting to know. It didn’t feel tragic or bittersweet to me like the other endings, just annoying.

The tl:dr : Really enjoyed the continuing characters and the worldbuilding, enjoyed the earned ending, but a lot of other things confounded my full enjoyment of the book.