If you’ve been riding the dark fantasy rollercoaster that is The Nightshade Crown series, buckle up! Hannah Whitten is back with The Nightshade God, and she’s not pulling any punches. This book wraps up Lore’s journey with high stakes, dangerous gods, and just the right amount of existential crisis.

In this concluding volume, Lore finds herself banished to the desolate Burnt Isles, a prison colony where survival is a daily struggle. Determined to defeat the god who has corrupted her world and save her allies, she embarks on a perilous mission to reunite the scattered pieces of the broken Fount—the source of all divine power. As Lore's magic grows stronger, she faces the challenge of wielding this newfound power without losing herself in the process. Whitten does what she does best: gives us a richly built world filled with messy, morally gray characters, emotional gut punches, and prose that feels like poetry dipped in blood and starlight.

The Nightshade God is a compelling conclusion to The Nightshade Crown series. With its blend of dark fantasy, complex characters, and thought-provoking themes, it is set to captivate readers and provide a fitting end to Lore's epic journey.

I went into this book with very high hopes. I loved The Foxglove King it hooked me right away with its atmosphere, characters, and the dynamics between Lore, Gabe, and Bastian. Book two was okay, a bit of a slower ride, but I still held out hope that the finale would bring it all home. Unfortunately, The Nightshade God just didn’t do that for me.

This book felt like it wasn’t really about Lore, Gabe, and Bastian anymore it was about the gods that possess them. And honestly? I was painfully bored through most of it. Every page felt like a chore to get through, and I really struggled to stay connected to the story.

We waited so long for Lore to finally get her happily ever after and when it finally came… we didn’t even really see it. I get what the author was going for, but I kinda hate that we didn’t get more time seeing Lore with Bastian and Gabe in a meaningful way. That’s probably where most of my frustration lies. I wish we had gotten more emotional payoff, more moments between the characters especially after everything they’ve gone through.

If you loved the god plotlines, divine lore and want to dive deep into possession, you might get more out of it than I did.

But in my case I just wanted more time with the characters who made me fall in love with this series in the first place. In overall, this book was a bit of a letdown.

The Nightshade God delves deep into a dark and enchanting world, showcasing her signature blend of atmospheric prose and intricate storytelling. This novel continues to explore the rich, often unsettling, folklore introduced in books one and two - deeping the mysteries and expanding the stakes. Whitten's strength lies in her ability to create a palpable sense of mood and place. The world feels ancient and alive, with its shadows and magic almost tangible. The characters are complex and driven, grappling with difficult choices and their own inner demons as they confront powerful forces. The narrative is richly detailed, and the plot unfolds with a captivating intensity, pulling you further into its magical grasp.

This series is perfect for readers who enjoy dark fantasy with a strong emphasis on atmosphere, morally gray characters, and a touch of gothic romance. It is a tale that lingers, full of lyrical beauty and a haunting sense of destiny.

Rating Breakdown:
Characters - 3
Plot - 3
Setting - 3
Writing - 5
Enjoyment - 3
Total Rating - 3

Review:
I've been eagerly waiting for the third and final installment of The Nightshade Crown. Sadly, this was a bit of a letdown for me.

This book picks up right where we left in The Hemlock Queen. We dive right back into all the character POVs without much of a refresher on how they ended up there. It hasn't been that long ago that I read the second book, but this was still a little jarring for me. We then took a long time establishing current state, so it felt like nothing impactful was happening for the first 20% or so. Pacing overall was problematic with this installment. There were times when I felt like I couldn't put the book down, because so much was happening, and then we would shift to another POV and lose all momentum.

I loved the world that was built in The Foxglove King, but we seemed to abandon much of that in this book. We expanded the world greatly, but I don't feel like it was given the same attention to details like the initial worldbuilding from the first book.

As for character arcs, I actually liked how most of the characters' grew and changed, building on their journeys from the previous two books. Alie's growth from book one to now had me cheering! I only wish that we had seen more exposition of Lore, Gabe, and Bastian's relationship.

Bottom Line:
I loved the first book in this series so much. If that is you too, then I definitely think you should close out the series with this final installment. Just go into it knowing that you may leave frustrated.

What a way to end the series. I cried at that ending. I liked that POVs were added. It made more sense with the crew being split up. Some of the chapters would include a different POV. I do not know why they weren't broken out into their own chapters. There were nice little sections of comedy that kept the story from being too heavy. I loved Alie's story the most. I was not expecting her to do that, but I'm glad she did. I would like novelas about what happens to the characters in the epilogue.

Thank you to netgalley and Orbit Publishing for providing me with E arc in exchange for an honest review!
*This does not any way shape or form alter my opinions or overall rating of this book/series.
I just want to say after falling in love with the characters in book 1 ( The Foxglove King) I was super intrigued to see how the series would end. After reading The Nightshade god, I was left happy and melancholic at the same time. I loved the underlying message and meaning Hannah Whitten wrote.
This series will be one I will forever not shut up about or recommend.! I will not leave any spoils but Lore, Bastian, and Gabe will forever live in my mind and linger with me for time to come.

A phenomenal conclusion to the most atmospheric, beautiful, tragic trilogy to ever exist. I’m heartbroken it is over, I am heartbroken I can’t read it for the first time again. Each book in this trilogy was a 10/10 and dare I say this is my favorite conclusion ever. I don’t want to spoil it, so I’ll leave it at that. Definitely read this book!

Many thanks to Orbit and NetGalley for the preview. All opinions are my own.

Somewhere between 4.25 and 4.5 stars

This was a fitting finale for the series. I like Nightshade God much better than the second book, so I'm rounding up my review for that reason. Overall rating for the series is probably 4 stars.

Everything finally comes to an explosive head with the gods dead and dying and their avatars. Again, I'm going to be very vague to avoid spoilers in my review. We get POVs from Lore, Gabe, Bastian, and Alie, and for the vast majority of the book, Alie's was my favorite POV. Everyone is trying to manage the gods and powers they have while being mostly separated.

These books have been incredibly easy and fast to read. I read this one in one sitting. But I can't say I was absolutely GRIPPED until the last 30%. And the end had me crying and so emotional. Truly it was heart-wrenching until the last line.

My complaints would be that by necessity the characters were separated for so long, and what I really loved in the first book was how they all played off of each other. And I really wanted more happy time at the end. I'd love if she gave us an extended bonus epilogue at some point.

Overall, still an enjoyable series!

This book is the emotionally gripping conclusion that I was hoping for and Hannah Whitten delivered. The stakes are higher than ever with all of our main cast separated across the lands and dealing with not only their own emotional turmoil, the growing danger of their newly discovered powers but also the imminent threat from the god intent on ruining them all.

The multiple POVs aided in weaving a tale that puts you through the gamut of emotions. Fear, longing, hope, resilience, grief, love and peace. It is beautifully written and well thought out. This is a fast paced, gut wrenching portrayal of what individuals are willing to sacrifice for family, love and community. The last 1/3 of this story had me biting my nails anxiously waiting to see if good would prevail over evil only to find that even the villain had gained my empathy. They succumbed to their fears and became a villain in the eyes of the world while thinking themselves someone worthy of worship makes you consider how self perception plays such a large role in our actions and our treatment of others. Whitten also explored the complexities of relationships and how we each bond and connect in such different ways which gave us a beautiful love story woven throughout the danger.

I cannot recommend this book enough, The Epilogue will break your heart and slowly stitch it back together but only after you’ve listened and learned to not repeat your mistakes. I am looking forward to release day to get my copy to add to my shelves!

I went into Nightshade God by Hannah Whitten expecting to be emotionally wrecked and put through the wringer, and boy did it do just that.

The world building, as with the previous two books was just incredible. Learning more about the Gods and the Fount kept me enthralled with the world throughout. Furthermore, seeing the ways that each separate God interacted with their hosts and having the looming question of whether they were there to take the persons body over or had other plots in mind kept things interesting and uncertain.

I loved that the third book had a number of point of view characters tell their various stories. With everyone split up in their own places, this allowed everyone’s stories to still be told and bring the whole book together and it was executed so well. They also never felt tedious, with each contributing to the overall plot and the characters all having their own goals and trying to accomplish something to work towards the overall goal they had as a group. Also seeing the progression the characters have made from the start of the series is so heartwarming. They have grown so much, been through so many trials and become such strong individuals with deep bonds. It made me feel for them all the deeper and frankly upped my anxiety over their potential outcomes because of the looming fear that having them all come out at the end untouched was unlikely in such a dark world with incredibly high stakes. Seeing them push and pull of Apollius and Bastian firsthand was also deeply crushing and anxiety filled because of the eternal fear of him being swallowed whole by the god and disappearing for good. I was quite wrought throughout this book.

Nightshade God was every bit as heart-wrenching as I expected it to be by the end. It wrecked my emotions and the ending left me bereft, with an epilogue that gave a kind of bittersweet hope. Having this trilogy come to an end was so sad though, with the end for these characters I’ve grown to love so much over the course of these three books. It was difficult to reach the end and know their story was over and to have things wrapped up so thoroughly. As with the previous two books I really enjoyed this one and am glad to have experienced the journey and these characters.

These books feel more fantasy over romantasy which is not a bad thing but I loved the first two in the series and this one just seemed to miss the mark for me.

There are multiple povs introduced in this one based on how the second one ends and it felt like it slowed down the pace. I was enjoying being in the other characters’ heads but it felt disjointed somehow?

And honestly I needed more yearning from the male main characters to make some of the tension between them more believable to me. It felt like some of the hesitation in the first two books was wrapped up too quickly.

Ughhh I don’t know yall… I wanted to love this one and I had to see it through to the end but it took me a while to get through this one and usually when a book grips me I’m finished with it within 3 days… not 9.

I might add more thoughts later but very grateful to have been able to read this one early.

Thank you to Orbit books and NetGalley for the eArc!

I felt like there was a lot going on, the characters fell flat, and the triangle romance between all of them threw me off in the sense that Lore was put into the background and I was ready to see more of her and Bastien. The three books felt a little disjointed from each other. I didn’t care for Gabe in the first book, much less in the second. I loved Bastien and him and Lore’s relationship. They had much better chemistry. The background story of the gods in the second book took away a lot of the energy and flow of the book, and again in this one. There were more POVS which I did not care for, more background on the Gods, which I also feel like it took away from the story. By the end of the book, I was just ready for it to be concluded, and it was somewhat satisfying. Overall it's a series that I kept hoping with each book that it'll grab my interests strongly, but it kept falling flat. It has everything that I want in a book. I hope her next projects are something that I can connect with better.

I can’t believe it’s over but I’m so happy to have gone in the ride. The Nightshade series has had me in a chokehold since December of 2022 when I received an ARC of The Foxglove King.
The Nightshade God gives the same gothic, tension between Lore, Gabe, and Bastian (we live a chaotic bisexual trio- because why should we have to pick!?) The two previous books left me wondering how in the world they are going to get out of the mess they’ve made by choosing each other and themselves first- and when I say I was on the edge up until the very end, I mean it!
This book ends in the most heartbreakingly beautiful way. Hannah Whitten will forever be an all time favorite of mine and I’m always amazed by how she manages to out do herself time and time again.

“ That’s how I’ll remember you. Both of you. Fierce, and beautiful, and at a beginning rather than an end.” 💔

This was quite the ending to the trilogy for Hannah Whitten. Through three books I grew to love Lore, Bastian, Gabe, Alie, Malcolm, and others. I enjoyed seeing their story progress and wanted to know how it was all going to end for them. The Nightshade God pulled everything together, and I left satisfied with the endings the characters received. This book features different points of views between the characters because we find them all spread apart for the first time. Lore has found herself in the Burnt Isles, Gabe and Malcolm are in Caldien, and Bastian and Ali are still in Dellaire. Different points of view were necessary since all of the characters couldn't be together. I enjoyed how the author still found ways to bring our characters together throughout the novel, but I think my favorite part of this novel was Gabe's growth. Thinking about who Gabe was at the beginning of the first novel is nothing compared to who he became. His character arc was the best written in my opinion. It's hard to dislike a trilogy where you feel like the characters become your friends and you become so vested in what is going to happen to them. That is exactly what The Nightshade God and Hannah Whitten did for me. I'm sad that my time with these characters are over, but I enjoyed the journey!

I keep trying to come back to this series after the stellar first book but it just continues to lose my attention. I rated the hemlock queen quite low and at 50% of this book, i just had to give up and move on.

Well, this was a bit of a let down. It’s always disappointing to see a series take a downward trend, especially when you look back at a high point at the start. The first book introduced a compelling cast of characters, a well-thought out, complex world, and a hidden history with promises of many exciting reveals to come. The second book languished a bit with “middle book syndrome,” little plot actually took place and several of the characters seemed to stall out in their progression (I also began to see the writing on the wall of a romantic arc I was less interested in). And here we are with the third.

To start with what I did like. I continue to enjoy Whitten’s style of writing. She has a way of drawing me in, even when I’m struggling to enjoy the relationships being portrayed or there isn’t necessarily a lot of plot to speak of. In less capable hands, that second book could have really gone another direction. Here, too, she takes the risky choice of swinging the focus away from our main three characters and back towards the gods they have come to embody. Now, I didn’t love this choice, but her writing is of such a high quality that I still pushed through what might otherwise have been a DNF from me.

But that urge to DNF was there, especially when I got to the middle section of the book and realized that I was halfway through the conclusion to a trilogy about three main characters and I had spent most of my time focusing on three OTHER characters (the gods in the past) and my main trio weren’t even together on page. Bizarrely, this book read almost like another middle book, where the author introduces a bunch of new characters and keeps the main group apart, with the expectation that this will all pay off in the end.

But this is the end! I get that the three gods are reflections of Lore, Bastian and Gabe. But no matter how closely they resemble those characters or their relationships mirror those of our main trio, they are still, demonstratively, not those characters. That being the case, I was frustrated with how much of the story focused on the interplay between these gods and their histories. Further, unlike an actual middle book, this one was our last chance to see our main trio together, so to spend so much of the story with them separated was truly unfortunate. For her part, Lore remains a good character on her own. But the dynamics between the characters is really what helps Bastian and Gabe to shine, so by distancing them all from one another, there was a decline in overall character quality to be found.

Lastly, I didn’t enjoy the romance. This is a completely subjective take, and I know many readers’ primary interest was in the throuple at the heart of the story. And, stepping back from my own preferences, I think all of those readers will be completely satisfied with this book. However, romance is a genre/topic that is incredibly subjective. Of all the genres, I think it is the one best served with tropes/hashtags assigned from the very start. A reader who enjoys dark romance is going to be into very different scenes and topics than a cozy romance reader. And the latter is best served by knowing right from the start that its a dark romance that they are picking up. So, too, with various pairings. Some readers enjoy reverse harems and throuples, while others are solidly monogamous/fated mates/etc. readers. I’m definitely the latter, and that being the case, this love story wasn’t for me.

This is one of those exact situations where I wish the book had been properly tagged from the start. Now! Don’t get me wrong, I probably still would have read this trilogy and been pleased I had, because I enjoy this author’s work and it’s not like throuples/polyamory are dealbreakers in any way. However, my expectations would have been properly aligned from the start. As it stands, the first book set up a love triangle, but I finished it still with the expectation that the trilogy would conclude with Lore ending up with one or the other, not both. So I was ultimately disappointed when I saw the direction the love story took, as throuples aren’t really my thing

All of this to say, this was just a fine read. As a whole, I don’t think the trilogy was properly paced, with the last two books both floundering a bit after the tightly plotted first book. That said, I think readers who are heavily invested in Lore/Bastian/Gabe will be incredibly happy with the way this book wraps up! I’ll definitely check out what Whitten writes next, but this trilogy won’t go down as one of my favorites from her.

Rating 7: This will definitely work for some, but I think it suffers from losing its focus on the main three characters at the heart of the story.

Link will go live on The Library Ladies on July 11

What a wonderful ending to the Nightshade Crown trilogy! All I have to say is that I got teary-eyed at the ending. I will truly miss Lore, Gabe & Bastian. Going along their journey on how to make the world a better place to be was truly AMAZING!

What a perfect and beautiful conclusion to the trilogy! The stakes have been raised throughout the books to earth shatteringly high and the tension kept me hooked - I devoured this book. I loved it even though it really put my heart in a blender. Can’t recommend this series enough!

Thank you to NetGalley and Orbit for the eARC.

I went into this final book in the trilogy hoping for more Gabe—and I got it. He’s always been my favorite of the trio, and while he spends the first half being a bit of an idiot (tricked way more often than someone that hot should be), it somehow works. Maybe it’s the distraction of love and loyalty? Either way, I was glad to have more of his perspective.

Lore, as our leading lady, is solid. Not my all-time favorite, but she holds her ground—clever, capable, a bit hardened by her past but still fighting for something better. Her instinct to build a found family remains one of my favorite parts of this story. That thread continues to weave through the book in ways both personal and powerful.

I really liked how the POVs were handled in this one. Everyone’s scattered, everyone’s carrying their own piece of the puzzle, and watching it all slowly come together kept the tension just high enough to keep me turning pages. I especially loved Alie’s chapters—she had more space to shine here, and I was fully onboard for it.

Bastian… less so. He’s never really been my favorite, and I was okay with him taking more of a backseat this time around.

Now, the throuple. I’ll admit, I didn’t think I was in the mood for another one of these this month—but it worked. The romantic tension never overtakes the plot. Instead, it reads like another layer of the found family dynamic, just with more complicated feelings and the occasional kiss. There’s a quote in the book that nails it: Gabe is the catalyst, Bastian the salve, and Lore the end. It’s messy, but it makes sense.

That said, I did want a stronger finish—especially from the god plotlines. Nyxara’s resolution felt anticlimactic. Apollius got the most focus (as expected), but Hestraon’s arc ended abruptly too. I was expecting the final act to be fast-paced and emotionally intense, but while it was enjoyable, it didn’t quite blow me away.

There were also a few details that could have been trimmed—scenes that felt like filler rather than essential beats. Still, Whitten’s writing style remains a strength. Her pacing works for me, her world-building is vivid without being overwhelming, and she writes just enough darkness to make the hope stand out.

Final note: what is with all the island rescues in my recent reads? Is that a trope now? Is it just me?

The Nightshade God is a near-perfect ending to The Nightshade Crown series. After the cliffhanger readers were left with from book two, I was eager to get my hands on this finale. When I got approved for this arc, I dropped everything and read it in one sitting. There was so much happening and the stakes were so high, but Whitten wrote it all beautifully, giving us four POVs that perfectly navigate the plot. This story grabs you from page one and holds you until the very end. The twists, turns, and tension never let up. Readers will travel to new places, meet new friends and foes, and learn more about the Gods. I absolutely love Lore, Bastian, and Gabe. This story will break your heart and then put it back together again. Fans of Whitten and this series will be happy with this ending.

Thank you NetGalley and Orbit Books for this ARC!