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I’m still conflicted on how to properly rate this. Overall, this was a little better than the second book because things “happened�� this time. The audiobook was narrated fairly well and kept me invested enough to continue. If I didn’t listen to the audio format, I honestly would’ve been more likely to DNF. This is entirely my own feeling on this book, so my incoming thoughts may not reflect the higher praise shared by others.

I felt that many reveals in this could have easily been incorporated into Book 2. It was genuinely exhausting to get through this because I couldn’t bring myself to care about the characters or story like before. It just felt like the author used this opportunity to smush everything into a hurried conclusion, after how underwhelming Book 2 was. Some of the reveals were easy to predict and others were an interesting addition to the plot.

I liked the witty banter from Book 1 but it felt cringier this time and deflated the reading experience. I loved Kai and Pae together, and their romance had a lot of potential. It did drag a few times and had me rolling my eyes, but it wasn’t awful. I still liked Pae’s character and Kai was great too (though he could have used a bit more work).

However, the overall writing was still a bit underwhelming and the worldbuilding was messy. This is probably more of a “me�� thing. I don’t expect mind-blowing/high-stakes fantasy from a romantasy, but it just felt so lazy to reuse the “trials�� plot again after everything that happened. Though the trials did seem to serve a purpose this time, unlike Book 1. If you can overlook all of that or don’t care about it, then you’ll likely love this more than I did.

I think the only thing that was written surprisingly well and redeeming was Kitt’s letters/POV + Edric’s chapters. Or it could be that I like how the author tends to write third person POVs. The other queen from the Shallows quest was also very interesting, and I wish there was more of her.

That ending was fairly predictable because it’s obvious from the start on how things would need to go for a relatively “happy�� ending. I was still annoyed with how Lauren pulled a borderline Maven Calore on a certain character and then wasted the potential of another character that was introduced earlier in the series. I understand why it was necessary, but I was personally disappointed with how poorly that was done. This was more of a low 3/5 for me (probably even bordering a 2.75)

This wasn’t terrible or the worst thing I’ve read. Like I said before, I would have enjoyed this series if it was written ten years ago. I just couldn’t overlook some of the recycled plots and concepts that were too similar to RQ. There was so much potential for originality that obviously was an afterthought.👀 It’s clear this series wasn’t for me, but I understand the entertainment aspect behind why others really loved it.