In many ways, this may be the best book in the series so far. So many elements are coming together.

Aeline promises to gather an army and is calling in old debts. But the ruling lords of Terrasen are not bullish on naming her queen for whatever reasons. One of the reasons is that with her power, what is to keep her from being a tyrant as bad or worse than what they are dealing with.

There are battle scenes both small and large and even a naval battle. All of them are well written as far as I'm concerned.

One thing I did find annoying is that Maas keeps pairing characters off. I don't know if it's fan service, but it seems every female char has to find a male char to fall in love with.

I don't want to spoil things but by the end of the book one of the pairings makes sense from a plot point. But the others, Im not so sure about. It's as if men and women can't care about each other unless they are in love.

But that's my only complaint.

Seeing the author pull all the strings together has been an amazing journey. And there are sill 2 more books to go. ( )

That Tandem read is both amazing and SO MUCH WORK. I do not recommend it for readers looking for an easy read, but those looking to get the most out of these books. Maybe save it for a second read through.

This book focused on one set of the characters while Tower of Dawn was set on another. This one had more stressful things happening to the characters and tore your heart out. It was wonderful to see so many of them interacting with one another and to start to see the prequels tie. Seeing how the world was being built out from the beginning was amazing.

And more Manon so how can I complain. ( )

Wow this book has broken me ( )

Love the crescendo of action from the beginning to the end of this book. And glad I'm reading it this late in the game because OOF that cliffhanger! This is generally my least favorite part of epic fantasy: the point where the focus turns away from character development to action scenes because "the big war" is coming. Maas handles this really well with the alternate storylines and romances happening in this installment, which I lived, because I hate reading an entire book of battle scenes.

That said: this is also the point in the series where Maas takes a deep dive into erotic scenes between characters. I know I'm going to get pummeled for this, but I hate long, drawn-out sex scenes in my epic fantasy. I get that they are well written and give folks a nice dose of dopamine, but it breaks me completely out of the story and has me skipping pages upon pages of sex to get back to the story. So, meh. I'll just continue to skip those scenes in the future and try not to begrudge the folks who read this JUST for those scenes. ;)

Definitely read it. ( )

Starts off really really slow for the first half of the book but by the second half you'll get the point and it becomes a lot more smooth to read. ( )