5 stars Wow!! This is one of those books that I finish reading and find I have to let it percolate a bit before beginning to put my thoughts in order to offer a review. Now, first off, let me tell you, this is supposed to be the final installment of this series. But it simply cannot be! I want more! There are a few things immediately apparent about Autumn Birt’s writing. First of all, she is a minimalist. She uses as little punctuation and as few words as possible to relate the story. This last fact, alone, makes it remarkable that this series is so long. There are no filler words lengthening the story. Occasionally, I found the wording of sentences a bit disorienting because I really like commas (because they tell me where to pause). For me, it takes a little more brain work to digest this writing. Another thing that is undeniable about her writing is that she is a professional when it comes to world-building. Whatever worlds she is creating, they are rich with details that appeal to all of the senses and they are memorable and easy to visualize. Physical sensations are one of the things that speaks to me as a reader, so the sections that described these feelings were especially powerful, like when she describes “...a day so sweltering in heat and humidity that skin felt like too much to wear.” I’ve experienced a few days like that myself. Descriptions of the bodily perceptions associated with travel through gateways and through time were particularly well-done, with a consistent impression that this travel was not exactly enjoyable. Adahy: “He grabbed onto the railing as what should be up twisted sideways, and the ground simply ceased to be.” Later: “Adahy forced the words out into air that felt like jelly.” And yet later: “The pressure changed, and Adahy felt like he dropped to his knees though he still stood next to Raven. Instead, his consciousness looked upward from somewhere near his midriff. And then he plummeted into the ground itself and spread out.” And at last, he “rose back into his body with the sickening feeling of falling skyward that ended with a drunken stagger.” Meanwhile, October experienced time travel in her own way. One day, she encountered a particular crossing “that felt like a step to the side that squeezed you through a funnel that inverted your inside and outside for a moment.” And Diva encountered “magic that made (her) feel like she was being pulled into her navel while her back expanded to fill the sky.” One of the things that was hard to understand in previous installments of the series was why Adahy didn’t go back to October after she worked so hard to save his life. In this one, we find out why and it made me see Adahy in a completely different light because I realized that it really bothered him that he couldn’t. He kept his distance from October because he knew something about the future and Raven had warned him against it. The author describes how a banshee affected humans, who could “barely hear” it. “But they could feel it. It itched like spiders of worry crawled over their skin, as if the ground were ready to open and swallow them whole.” Ewww! One of my favorite characters in all of fiction is Bramble. His complex personality is a contrast of light and dark and the juxtaposition of these opposing qualities makes it possible to love and fear him at the same time, or as October observes, you love him until you want to kill him. His physical description is wonderful, but this book focused more on his personality, of which this is just one example: “...the brownie burst into a growling chant with a few notes that fluttered into something near birdsong… if a bird were drunk or terrified.” Every description of Bramble, whether he was being overly exuberant and drawing blood as he hugged his friends or being mischievous and causing trouble, made me love him more and wish for my own Bramble in my life. No review would be complete with a word on Sgleo, who seemed like a victim when he was introduced in book one. He transformed over the course of the series until he became a narcissistic megalomaniac with no redeeming personal qualities. Finally, Leanag had an encounter with him in which she experienced his “cold gaze of a hawk that she wasn’t sure was hungry,” and realized, “This aloof cold reminiscent of a distant star as it ate its planets was Sgleo’s true heart.” At that point, it was easy to understand why the previous Dark Fae Queen had put him in an iron sleep. It was hard not to root for his downfall. The ending was action-packed and, at times, overwhelming. If I were tasked with writing this, I would find the thought of trying to describe the climax of the story so overwhelming, I would completely botch it. This author handles it like a champ, describing the events in such great detail that I felt I could see what was happening (mostly). If I’m being honest, it was very complicated and I had to go back and reread a few sections. And then, I kept wishing I had misunderstood something, even though I knew I hadn’t. It’s not a shock, but I had hoped for something happier. I’ve become addicted to the HEA, and this story doesn’t exactly offer that. It doesn’t follow the expected formula, offering the Hollywood ending, and perhaps that makes it better, but it doesn’t stop me from wanting to change it. Regardless, I cannot recommend this series highly enough. And I’ll be keeping my fingers crossed there will be, at least, an epilogue. July 23, 2021
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September 2022
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