A great ending to a fabulous series - glittering, glamorous and chock full of interesting, flawed *real* characters that you can really fall in love with. A fully realised world, fascinating, exciting plot and great writing. Highly recommend.

Thank you to netgalley and Tor for the e-arc!

What a series! It's been quite some time that I've binged a series with such enthusiasm. The way this series is told has beats unlike other novels I've read, and it kept this series feeling fresh with each new book.


Characters:

The characters, and their relationships, are what I loved the most about this novel.

I was so glad Cyril was back! He was my favourite character in the first novel, and was my favourite again in this one, and his personal journey along with Aristide was so engrossing.

I enjoyed reading about Aristide and Daoud's relationship, the strain and power imbalance that made them an interesting duo. I liked how the novel ended them, making their journey as characters satisfying.

I loved the nephew-uncle relationship between Cyril and Stephen. All their scenes together managed to be fun,cute and kind of sad at the same time. Seeing Stephen connecting to an adult, and growing through someone else's faults felt real, the relationship genuine.

These characters are morally grey. Some of them have done outright despicable things, but that's why I loved them, that's why they were so interesting. I loved how dark it could be, yet you sympathized with them as well. We see them physically and mentally vulnerable. Through aging, or illness or experience. I loved how everyone in this book wasn't just young and gorgeous and flawless. That we had people of all ages who felt real, both beautiful and flawed in their own ways.


Plot:

I'll admit this is were the audiobook served me well for the other books. While I adore these characters, I don't care much for political plots, and it's easier to glaze over those details in an audiobook over physically reading. There was a section in the middle were the book focused a lot around an election and politics, and those scenes didn't interest me at all. I cared much more for the character orientated scenes, and how the plot would later effect them.

The plot was engaging at the beginning with all the characters colliding again after years apart, and it picked up at the end once more consequences came into play.


Overall:

This is a series I would highly recommend, and it's a shame it's not getting more attention. It feels so fresh, with distinct and fleshed out characters that have been written in a way I haven't seen before. This was a satisfying conclusion to the trilogy.