I loved this series and this book did not dissapoint! It was full of adventure and action which I really love in YA books. I will be recommending this book to all of my friends.

Hello all and welcome to me screaming about how utterly wrecked I am from disappointment and let-down expectations. This book took the excellence from the other two and decided to throw it in the garbage and I'm just sitting here like ?????????

HOW DID THIS HAPPEN????? everything was going so well in the other books?? My heart literally HURTS from the absolute disrespect this showed to all the characters who became paste-in plot devices instead of the living, breathing portrayals of the first two books. The writing is still mostly-decent but barely holds together the shabby attempts at plot and finalization. Questions are "answered" in the way of someone taking a sit-down and listening to a podcast of the news for the last 10 years in a chipmunk voice you can barely decipher. Relationships are a joke all around and don't even make sense??

(except for ONE but that's a point for later down . . . )

The way this is written feels like the author wrote the first third of the book directly after the others . . . but then came back a few months later with a totally different viewpoint than what it had originally started as and like I DON'T LIKE THAT!?!? The consistency from the other books is erased by the halfway point. Characterizations are ripped apart into cardboard cut-outs and the magic that led me to ADORE the other books was totally missing from here.

⚠️⚠️ spoilers start now ⚠️⚠️

I just absolutely HATED the way Guinevere's character was reduced to that of a lost little girl who seemed to care more about stubbornly isolating herself from those who cared about her and refusing to accept advice. Which considering all that she'd been through previously, it is somewhat understandable . . . but she really didn't GROW as a character. Instead, she came across as stuffed into a box meant to portray how Independent™ and Girl Power™ she was, which actually came across as the opposite, stifling any potential. She rushed into things with only half a thought and sheer idiotic determination driving her so much that it was a wonder Guinevere made it as far in life as she did.

and now allow me to shriek in anger about the revelation of her past . . .

The way the secrets of her past are teased about fall so, so flat in comparison to the actual revelation. Who cares she's a weird mix of an immortal water deity (half of the Lady of the Lake) who maybe killed the soul of the "real Guinevere" to create something new which is the Guinevere we know in this series?? Apparently she does . . . too much. It was this driving force behind her stupid decisions and crippling self-deprecation that was more-than-poorly handled in order to rush the Girl Power™ aspects she and the rest of the book was supposed to have.

*bangs pots and pans* BUT DON'T TAKE ME HATING ON BADLY-WRITTEN FIERCE FEMALE CHARACTERS AS HATING ON FIERCE FEMALE CHARACTERS!!!! The reason I'm so upset is that it's a BAD EXAMPLE and could have been so much better but really comes off as the author being angry (as she stated in her acknowledgements tbh) and that, in my opinion, quite obviously clouded judgement in creating good characters instead of using them as shells to vent personal rages through.

Funnily enough, it's that LITERAL plot aspect that really frustrated me—the sheer lack of power everyone had when it came to The Dark Queen and Merlin. Except of course for Guinevere who suddenly was able to block control and save the day. Yay for girl power!!

before I scream about how upset I am with how the relationships in this book were handled, allow me to introduce the mess in here that is the Plot, apparently:

"Arthur is plotting against her, and my mother is plotting against Merlin, and doubtless Merlin saw all this and has his own plots that were put in motion seventy years ago and will somehow ruin whatever my mother is trying to do, while Arthur sweeps in with his damnable sword and cuts through the magic of my grandmother, who will retreat and plot anew, while Arthur goes and does Arthur things and and my mother plots and Merlin interferes from afar. They are all a terrible river crashing down a hill. Nothing will stop them. Nothing will alter their course. If we remove ourselves from it, all we have done to affect the outcome is claim our own selves and our own happiness as more important than being drowned by their conflict.

My boy Mordred once more proving his amazingness by summing up this book's plot so aptly and perhaps being the only self-aware character?? And yet he's treated as the Bad Guy™?? The DISRESPECT . . . but I digress.

The plot of this book is shaky at best, rushed at worst as it tries to pull all the threads together in a way that stays somewhat true to the originating mythos while still carrying out the retelling aspects. And quite honestly, it's badly done. There is a narrative being pushed in this book that I GET OKAY but sacrifices good story telling to do so. The female strength and character equality could have been in here without trashing all the male characters or ruining characterization on all genders. It felt forced and unnatural and truly shattered all my hopes of this book being as grand as the previous ones. It was slapped together and the "ending" felt more in line with a drafted outline than an actual finale.

If there was just ONE THING this book did right it was show how Arthur really isn't a good person and yet no one really cares about that. Yes, that is an effect of his upbringing and the world he was raised in . . . but still doesn't excuse it. He isn't cardboard so much in this book because his faults and barely-erased toxic ideas of a relationship are put on full display here. And it's really sad that THIS is the thing I have to applaud.

Also, the other characters were barely in here to make room for Guinevere angsting about how she's wrong, doesn't belong, and oh no can never love anyone or do anything right.

I should have stopped reading this after first third of this book because made me SO HAPPY because my boy Mordred was around, Guinevere was finally allowing herself to recognize the connection they had and the feelings she held for him. The plot made sense. The characters were real and funny. They bantered so well. It was sweet and cute and a fair amount of PG smexy . . . until it wasn't.

I WISH I COULD EXPLAIN WHY THE UNEXPECTED, BADLY-EXCECUTED CHANGE OF PACE HAPPENED!!! The blurb promised and more than hinted at an exploration (I guess we did get that) and confirmation of a Guinevere/Mordred ship. And I wish I could say that we got a solid HEA here on literally ANY level. So many chances for excellence were tossed aside, even a lovely appealing aspect of a poly romance between Guinevere, Mordred, and Lancelot because, in the first third of the book, EVERYTHING MADE SENSE AND I WAS OVERJOYED!!

Is my review becoming as disjointed as the book?? Probably. I am just so TIRED and my heart aches with how much this let me down, okay. I was so hyped for the finale of this series, ready for all the Mordred teases to come into play in a finalized relationship . . . but instead I got nothing but frustration at the amount of how many good things didn't happen or were tossed aside as if they were worthless. Guinevere from the first book would be horrified at what happened to her; I AM horrified at what happened to her . . . any everyone else. And so I am just going to re-read the first third of the book again and pretend that's the true finale and Mordred and Guinevere chose to run off to a cottage together in Avalon and leave the rest of the people to fight it out amongst themselves.

P.S. No, the introduction of Fina wasn't even enough to rescue this book.