The Nightshade Crown trilogy is one of my favorite series of all time, and The Nightshade God has been my single most anticipated release for over a year. Now that it’s here, I’m going to need about a month to recalibrate and somehow accept that the series is over. 😭 I have been wildly Pinterest-ing to the author’s Nightshade God playlist to cope. I wish this book had been like 800+ pages, so I’d still be reading it right now — I’m not ready for this to be the end. 🥹

I’ve been sitting with my thoughts on this one for a few days, so I can find even remotely adequate words to express how I feel. As with the Foxglove King and the Hemlock Queen, the longer I sit with the Nightshade God, the deeper it burrows. This finale was intense and devastating and hopeful and SO bittersweet. I have so many feelings, each made more intense by the nostalgia of reading the end while thinking back to how it all started. My insides have been scooped out and stepped on and somehow delicately reassembled?

Hannah Whitten writes people with such understanding and depth. Lore, Gabe, and Bastian are EVERYTHING TO ME — I love them each so deeply it’s unbelievable.

In the Nightshade God, we find endings and beginnings, new cycles and old truths, competing hopes and fears. Hannah Whitten’s writing is rich, poignant, monstrous, beautiful, queer, atmospheric, urgent, violent, thoughtful, tragic, hopeful. She submerges us in humor, despair, ash and sea and bloodshed, love, grief, and the gore of life and death. Together, we explore faith, autonomy, ownership, divinity, power and fear, desire, fate, empire, religion, reverence, obedience, justice and salvation, penance and becoming. the place and inevitability of story & belief in the world. how divinity shapes humanity and how humanity can shape it in return. Can people change? Can the world change? And do they deserve the chance to do better?

In many ways, The Nightshade God was unexpected for me. I didn’t realize how specific my expectations were for book 3—how much scaffolding I’d already built in my head for the plot—until I was quite a bit into it. This book surprised me and knocked me a little off balance.

The pacing, atmosphere, and structure are quite a bit different from the first two books. The multi-POV narration is a significant shift from only following Lore throughout the first two books, which results in some changes in pacing and writing. The Nightshade God felt faster-paced for me, given the action and movement throughout, which works well for a trilogy finale. I do wish this book had been a bit longer; I would have loved to sit in a some of these moments (1-2 key scenes in particular) with our characters a bit more—even just a few more sentences or paragraphs. (As I said, NOT ready to let them go🥹😩, and I loveee a good pondering.)

It took me a second to accept that [REDACTED]. That said, [REDACTED] feels true to the story and really makes us feel the ending that much more strongly -- I honestly and truly bawled.
(The above thought is a bit spoilery, so I've redacted anything specific and I will come back to add it after release day! 🫶)

Ultimately, Hannah Whitten and I seem to answer some fundamental questions posed by this series in different ways, and yet that too is part of what I love and appreciate so much about this story. It’s an amazing experience to feel so aligned with so many of someone else’s ideas and yet to remain in conversation with them (at least, that’s how I feel as a reader) and to consider things at times overlapping and yet so different from my own expectations and beliefs.

This series is one of my all time favorites. I am so grateful for the Nightshade Crown, for its emotion and empathy, its hope and contemplation, and for all of the ways in which it has surprised me. Hannah Whitten has been an auto-buy author for me since I first finished the Foxglove King, and that DEFINITELY remains true today.

I cannot thank you enough for creating this world, these characters, and their stories 🖤

Thank you to NetGalley, Orbit, and Ms. Whitten for the opportunity to read an ARC of this title. An honest review was requested but not required.

I thought this was a successful close to the series. Admittedly it did take a moment to remember and place all of the characters, as the book starts out abruptly in the action. But the ends were tied up satisfactorily and I did like the way Ms. Whitten resolved the conflict between the God (the Fount), the god-beings, and the humans. Particularly I enjoyed Lillia's redemption arc as well as Alie's POV. The author's choice to shade Alie a little darker gray worked really well for me. If I had a quibble it would be that the first half was stronger in advancing Lore, Bastian and Gabe's characters than the second half. My favorite part was Lore's time in the mines and her uneasy alliance with Dani.

Strong four stars. I feel comfortable highly recommending the series overall. I've read some really perfunctory romantasy lately so credit where credit is due, this series is head and shoulders above some of the (dubiously) popular BookTok junk I've seen out there. I will say, this series is a romantasy but definitely skews more toward fantasy than romance (which is a nice change from the general trend).

⭐⭐⭐⭐

This was unputdownable! I could’ve easily finished this in one sitting, but forced myself to take my time and really let the story sink its claws into my skin (still devoured it in 3 days - I could only hold out for so long 😅)

The pacing was immaculate as always! Sometimes when an author adds other POVs, especially when the reader is used to just the one, it can get a bit messy and the flow of the book can start to feel off. But I was equally excited for each character’s POV after finishing another’s chapter. There was never a time when I thought “fuck I don’t wanna read about this person can I just skip this??”

Along with a POV change, I feel like sometimes when you have a big change in setting or some type of big departure from one book to another, the series can break apart a little, like in tone. But that did not happen here either! This finale fits in perfectly with the rest of the trilogy - retaining that dark, gritty, kind of gothic, almost bleak feel

The first Bastian chapter made me want to weep with relief and then I was actually crying when I realized what his chapter meant 😭

I’m so relieved in the fact that everyone played a part in like saving the world at the end, instead of just one of the triad making a grand sacrifice and the other two riding off into the sunset. Would I have accepted that ending? Of course! But at the same time it would’ve felt like a bit of a copout and a little too easy 🤷‍♀️ While this ending did have me sobbing for 30-60 min straight I appreciated it so so SO much more haha

On that note - How was Hannah Whitten possibly able to write an ending so devastating and perfect at the same fucking time 😭

I feel like it’s rare for an author to wrap up a story so profoundly that you don’t have any unanswered questions or loose threads, but that’s exactly what we have here! Reading through those centuries at the end was gut wrenching, but filled every possible void this story could’ve had. I feel so incredibly at ease with this ending - the perfect amount of closure 🖤

A couple of other mentions:
- The dry humor is 🧑‍🍳💋 even when I was drowning myself in tears I was forced to crack a smile by one character or another 🥹
- At no point did I know how this would end. I kept alternating from one bittersweet ending to the next and never settled on anything close to what Whitten blessed us with in the end - which is my favorite type of ending

Solid conclusion to this series. I really enjoyed how the stakes rose steadily throughout the theee books, culminating in this one. I could see this being classified as fantasy/romance, however it’s definitely heavier on the fantasy. This was a great balance for me between plot, world building, characters and romance. I am sad to say goodbye to Lore, Bastian and Gabe but I feel satisfied with the ending.

4.75 stars
I don’t think I’ve ever had so many mixed feelings and emotions over a series finale. This was everything I wanted but I also wish it wasn’t over. I will be manifesting an epilogue novella for the foreseeable future until I can see my favorite trio again. The ending of this was a rollercoaster of plot twists that I had no clue what would happen next, and it wasn’t until the last two of pages that I could cry happy tears at how it worked out. The Nightshade Crown series remains one of my all time favorites, with religious themes, necromancy, celestial aesthetics, meddling gods, and the most delightful slow-burn romance I’ve ever read. I will be highly anticipating Hannah Whitten’s future books that I already know will be amazing based on her hauntingly beautiful lyrical prose that she’s proven through the four books I’ve read by her so far. The only reason I gave this 4.75 stars instead of 5 is because our main characters were separated for so long throughout the book. I think it was worth it though for how satisfying the reunion scenes were.

Thank you so much Orbit & Hannah Whitten for the advanced copy!
I really enjoyed the end of this series!
The relationship between characters is what really drove this story for me. I love our main trio of Lore/Gabe/Bastian with my whole heart.
I was kicking my feet and giggling and then sobbing at the end.
The stakes felt high and the political intrigue was definitely there. I wish the middle was a bit shorter and the end a bit longer but overall I felt like I was flying through reading this book.
Definitely recommend the series as a whole

What a stunning conclusion for Hannah Whitten’s Nightshade Crown trilogy! I already had suspected after finishing book two that this epic finale would become my favorite & I wasn’t wrong.
Alie and Gabe sharing the spotlight in this book was exactly what was needed to strengthen the storyline, and their chapters were my favorite aspect of it all. The Gods encompassing their minds throughout, additionally with the elemental magic at play was so fascinating to see unfold.
From godly tales shared back in time to present situations, there wasn’t any point I wasn’t fully captivated by each the characters journey.
The last quarter definitely paid off well in the end, layering all the character growth we see them individually obtain, to rising above it all to save those they deeply care about.
Major applause to Whitten for such a beautiful and memorable series!

The Nightshade God is an exciting continuation of Lore’s story, filled with intense magic, detailed world-building, and complex characters. The writing is vivid and immersive, especially in its portrayal of the Burnt Isles. Lore is a strong and engaging main character whose journey grows deeper as she battles with power, loyalty, and the cost of survival. The side characters, especially the returning allies, are well-developed, though some of their emotional moments feel rushed as they try to reunite the broken Fount. Nonetheless, the novel effectively explores themes of divine corruption and personal choice, making it a darkly satisfying sequel.

What an exceptional ending to a truly unique trilogy. The entire story is fraught with frustration and desperation, which you experience with the characters as they try to fight their way through this story. Something else happens whenever you think they're close to discovery or victory. You desperately keep hoping for the win, the happily ever after, for the sun to come out from behind the clouds. I won't say because you need to find out for yourself. Hannah Whitten has written a fantastic trilogy with flawed characters, a wild magic system, and capricious gods who are worse than meddlesome. Our heroes and heroines suffer greatly, and the word apocalypse is used rather literally several times. It all comes together in a thoroughly satisfying conclusion. The Nightshade Crown is a must-read.

Thank you, NetGalley and Orbit Books, for the eArc. These opinions are mine.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the ARC!

Oh, this was a lovely conclusion to the trilogy. That epilogue, so full of hope, was everything to me. In contrast to the somewhat stifling atmosphere of the previous book where we were trapped in solely Lore's POV just as she was trapped in her position, the introduction of new and varied POVs here felt like a breath of fresh air. I especially loved Alie's arc, good for her, good for her. The numerous side characters also shone, allowing for a lot more breathing room and more interesting perspectives and dynamics (Raihan, my beloved). The relationships between Lore, Bastian, and Gabe were, of course, the highlights of the book, however. Though they were apart for a large portion of the book, I was very pleased to see how easily they came together, the three of them fully accepting and acknowledging their undeniable love for each other. All in all, I'm very happy with the fates of all the characters.

3.5 stars

This is not how I expected to feel after finishing The Nightshade Crown series. I am a huge Hannah Whitten fan, and I really enjoyed the previous two installments in this trilogy. However, The Nightshade God was an underwhelming and messy conclusion to this gothic fantasy trilogy.

The characters have always been my favorite part of this series. Lore is an incredibly strong main character. I really liked exploring her relationship with her power and her feelings of guilt and responsibility. Gabe and Bastian continue to be angsty and entertaining characters to follow. I found the evolution of Bastian’s character particularly compelling.

I love a story about light v. darkness, history repeating itself, meddling gods, and past events being warped by institutions in power. And Hannah Whitten explores these themes in really interesting ways throughout this series.

I was really looking forward to the new direction that the story was going to take after reading the ending of The Hemlock Queen. Unfortunately, I don’t think this shift was successful. The third installment felt like it was missing a lot of what made the previous two books successful. I was SO EXCITED to learn that this installment would have multiple POVs. But, unfortunately, the book fails to make up for what it loses with the three main characters separated.

Pacing—particularly slow beginnings—has been a consistent weakness across this series. And the pacing in The Nightshade God is no exception. The different plot lines lacked tension and urgency, and it felt like it took forever for the story to get to the main point. Over half of this book felt like a “slow start.” I think it was difficult to manage an engaging plot with all of them separated and in new places. There are too many convenient new things to get them out of impossible situations.

Alie’s story might have been the strongest perspective in this book. ALIE. The character I CONSISTENTLY FORGET EXISTS BETWEEN BOOKS.

I honestly think that this series would have been more successful as a duology with the conflict with the gods scaled down. I was completely invested in the plot with the gods in the first two books. But The Nightshade God tries to expand the conflict even further, and it just didn’t land for me. It became hard to follow what the characters were working toward, with the scope of the conflict constantly changing. The new settings, goals, and tools weren’t well integrated into the overall story. This final installment completely lacked the strong atmosphere that made both The Foxglove King and The Hemlock Queen shine.

I like the ending a lot for the emotional impact, but I don’t know if it really fits with the messaging of the series. (To be fair, I only noticed the discordant messaging after talking about it with a mutual.)

Though I am disappointed that this finale was not the resounding success I expected it to be, I still enjoy The Nightshade Crown series overall, and I will continue to read everything Hannah Whitten writes.

The nightshade god is the epic conclusion for the Nightshade Crown series. Overall this has been a good fantasy series and I will read more of Hannah Whitten’s works. This book wasn’t what I expected but I enjoyed how everything was tied up and resolved.

The Nightshade God picks up right where The Hemlock Queen left us. This book introduced multiple POVs which I really enjoyed and we got to the see the story through different lenses. This book was slow to get into but it did pick up about halfway through. I wish we got to see more of Lore, Bastian and Gabe rather than the Gods but it was still solid and the epilogue made me feel things.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for the e-arc!

Thank you, Netgalley and the publisher, for a free ARC in exchange for my honest review

Knowing that this was the last book in the series, I expected a lot of mayhem, and boy, did this book deliver. I will say the book does start a bit slowly, but there was still enough going on to keep my attention. This was the main reason I knocked off a star; especially since I found book two to be very slow-paced, I really needed this one to be a bit quicker. That said, the last roughly 20% was so chaotic. So much was going on, and I physically could not put down the book; I had to know how it all ended. I had some ideas about how this series would end, and I was pretty much wrong on every single thing (which doesn't happen often). I can't even count how many times my jaw dropped or I gasped out loud at something that happened. And if Hannah F Whitten's goal was to rip my heart out, well, she did it. While I honestly can't get too specific about what I enjoyed about this book without giving spoilers, I will say that I loved many of the characters, especially Alie. She really flourished in this book and quickly became one of my favourites, especially after a certain event happens on a boat, which was one of the moments when my jaw dropped. While I loved almost all the characters, I must admit that I didn't always enjoy the relationships between them. The primary one is between Bastian and Gabe. While there was some buildup, it all felt a bit too rushed for my taste, which in turn made it feel somewhat unrealistic. Overall, I was pleased with how this series ended, and I enjoyed my time in the world.

A quick content warning: this series, and especially this book, gets pretty graphic at times.

With Lore and her allies scattered across the world, all hope seems lost. King Bastian reigns under the influence of an evil god, making deals with despots and undoing the reforms made in the last few months. But destiny has its own plans. Even scattered, Lore and her friends have one last chance to thwart the god trying to reshape the world, one last chance to steal his power back. It may just unfortunately take their own lives to pull it off.

THE NIGHTSHADE GOD is the kind of finale that lands the plane competently, but without much pizzazz. It isn't a BAD book, but it lacked tension and failed to make me invested in the personal stakes for the characters. As an example, look no further than the central plot of the story. Book two ended with our characters scattered across the world for various reasons, and early in THE NIGHTSHADE GOD, they all learn of objects that have been hidden for centuries that are important to defeating the central villain. Rather conveniently, there's one of these hidden objects in each of the locations these scattered characters ended up. While there's some attempt to explain this as destiny, it felt instead like it was giving the characters a thing to do before bringing them all together for the finale.

The characters themselves also really have very little growth to go through. There's still pining and angst between the characters but nothing that we hadn't seen previously. The one new romantic pairing that was introduced honestly left me baffled. Worst of all, the finale felt like it betrayed the themes of the entire series and the very lessons that the characters were supposed to be learning.

All that being said, I was never in a place where I was hate-reading THE NIGHTSHADE GOD. It was simply that I was never excited to pick the book up, never dying to know what could possibly happen next. Every plot point was simply a hurdle to overcome fairly quickly in the journey to the inevitable conclusion. It's a book that I can honestly say I walked away from simply....whelmed.

In the epic conclusion to The Nightshade Crown trilogy, it’s a battle of the will of the gods vs. the world of humanity.

One thing I’ve found so interesting in these books is how Whitten approaches all sides of religion and spirituality in relation to the gods. On one hand, having a higher power to believe in can bring hope, peace and comfort. It can unify people and serve as a guide in life. But it can also be twisted and interpreted in many ways, some of which can be harmful and divert from the truth. We see this in how Apollius is all-consumed with the desire to be worshipped and possess more power than any one being should have. I appreciated the conclusion that Whitten came to and the lessons learned along the way for these characters.

With that said, this book was not my favorite in the trilogy, and there were a few things that just didn’t burn as bright as the previous books. First, it’s a slow pace. Jam-packed (and at times chaotic) ending, but it dragged getting to that point. Second, and probably the biggest drawback for me, was that our main characters spent practically no time together. The POV changes were a departure from the first two books, and while I completely understand why with how the story evolved, I personally didn’t love it. Their dynamic is part of what I loved so much early on in the series and that was missing a lot for me here.

Overall, it’s a solid romantic fantasy series, but it started better than it ended for me and my reading tastes! 3.5 Stars

Thank you to Hannah Whitten, Orbit Books, and NetGallley for giving me an eARC of The Nightshade God in exchange for my honest review.

The Nightshade God is the thrilling conclusion to The Nightshade Crown Trilogy. This book picks up a bit after the conclusion of The Hemlock Queen. While the start of this book does not take place immediately after the conclusion to The Hemlock Queen it is not this dramatic time jump. Rather, this book has given time for things to settle down a bit and for the characters to have truly experienced this new "normal" if that is what you want to call it. Overall, this book primarily focuses on the plot rather than developing the characters. At this point, the characters are well established and their motivations do not need to be explored as much. Though I will say, these characters do NOT get a break. There is not one moment of peace throughout this book (at least until very last page) and as a reader you get to see how these characters will respond to difficult situations. While this book is plot driven, it is also fast-paced, though it does not feel rushed.

In general, I have mixed feelings about this book. Those mixed feelings do not have to do with whether or not I enjoyed the book because I did. I just cannot decide if that is the ending I wanted or not. The way this book plays out feels right in many ways, and does not feel like something is being compromised to give readers the ending that they might desire to see. However, that does not mean I did not want to see this picture perfect ending that I hoped for. It is one of those things where I think this book was well written and well done, AND I am still mourning the ending I had desired. Not that that ending was ever promised because it was not. I had my own imaginations about the ending as any reader does. That does not take away from this book though and how well done this book was. It brings the trilogy to a satisfying end that feels right and also still has the characters going through it. Overall, I would highly recommend this book and this trilogy to all fantasy lovers out there. It is not one that you want to miss out on.

Hannah Whitten has created a masterpiece ending to the Nightshade Crown Trilogy. After falling in love with Lore, Gabe & Bastian, it was truly gut wrenching to say goodbye to this series.

If I could give this a billion star rating, I would!

This was a worthy conclusion to a trilogy I absolutely adore. Hannah Whitten’s worldbuilding is breathtaking—lush, dark, and steeped in myth, with a tangle of gods, rot, and haunting power that feels both ancient and alive. The lore is so rich and intricate, I never want to leave it.

It did take me a bit to settle into this final book—I was aching for the main trio to reunite sooner—but I understand why the separation mattered for the stakes and the story’s tension. And while I loved the way it wrapped up, I wish the ending hadn’t come solely in the epilogue. I wanted more time to live in that hard-won peace and joy, to breathe alongside these characters I’ve grown to love.

I’m honestly not ready to leave this world behind. I’d devour a novella or spin-off in a heartbeat—anything to spend more time tangled up in Whitten’s intoxicating, shadowed magic.

I really love this series. This book was a 4.5 for me, and that extra half-star if for the epilogue. I loved it so much. I loved the girl coming every one hundred years to hear the story. The throuple did feel like it came out of no where, at least to me I was not picking up those vibes until half way through this book LOL. I actually wish there had been more about the gods backstory. I know we got some in the second book but I would have liked even more. I love Bastian.

***Thank you to Orbit Books for providing an advance copy of the book. My review contains my honest thoughts about my reading experience.***

The Nightshade God is a hard book for me to review because I want to talk about ALL THE THINGS. However, I also don’t want to spoil the book for anyone. Hence the conundrum. In many ways this wasn’t the finale I wanted or expected, but it wrapped things up well all things considered.

First things first, the plot of The Nightshade God was a bit meh. The beginning and the end held my interest, but the middle 50% of the book really did drag. I liked getting to explore the new locales at the start. Then things took a turn into one of the most boring MacGuffin chases I’ve ever read. For so much of the book, I just kept wondering what the point of Apollius was. He wasn’t doing much except chilling in the palace and having lots of sex. lol. Thankfully, things picked up in the last quarter of the story, and the final showdown I’d expected from the start finally took off. The ending was definitely a choice, but it did manage to pack some intense emotional punches.

Even though I didn’t always love the plot of The Nightshade God, I still enjoyed my time with these characters. They were all so interesting with some juicy internal struggles. Of course, I ate up all of the interactions between Bastian, Lore, and Gabe and was so happy the story took them THERE. Alie also grew into a new favorite as she continued to navigate the deadly court and grew into her own power. The lives and personalities of the gods were also something I enjoyed learning more about, and they interacted with the characters in a myriad of interesting ways. My only complaint about the characters is that they were split up. I missed their group dynamic so much.

The thematic content in The Nightshade God had a lot going on. The narrative tackled a wide array of topics, some of them in more depth than others. It continued the theme of religious deconstruction from the first two books. All of the characters had to come to terms with learning that the central tenets of their religion were a lie. Their god turned out to be a monster with an insatiable lust for power and control who did everything imaginable to avoid the existential dread of death. My favorite theme of the book, though, centered on how to make a better world. In a universe that is harsh and indifferent, people make all the difference. The story illustrated that being led by fear and a desire for power/control over the chaos of life leads to increased suffering, whereas interacting with the world through the lens of hope and kindness makes things better for everyone.

All in all, The Nightshade God was a mostly satisfying conclusion to this trilogy. The characters and themes kept my attention even when the plot felt like it was treading water. There were some moments that had my jaw on the floor or a tear in my eye, but they were a bit overshadowed by how slow the MacGuffin chase progressed. I definitely recommend the series, though, and think it does work well as a whole, both in terms of character arcs and themes. Therefore, I rate this book 4 out of 5 stars.