Thank you, Hailey Turner and Valentine PR, for sending me an advanced copy of this book!
Wow, I am deceased. I feel like lately I've been let down by a lot of series-finishers, in that the final book didn't live up to my expectations. That wasn't the case here whatsoever. That said, this book does NOT pull the punches. My heart was pounding during most of my read-through!
My biggest favorite for this book was finally learning more explicitly about the star gods' motivations. We got to read about them throughout all three books, but their goals and conflicts were (at least to me) left obscure, which exponentialized the tension. These are the people pulling the strings all over the world (or, the continent? Maricol) and yet what are their goals? Are they trying to go after each other? Some cooperated together at different points in the three books but are they allied or 'friends of convenience'? I'm not saying we get all the answers -- Hailey Turner simultaneously did an amazing job of leaving these gods as gods. We got to see more of them, understand their thoughts a little more, but ultimately, they are still on a different plane of existence from the humans. Great stuff!
This book starts with a time jump. After the harrowing end of The Emperor's Bone Palace, several months pass before the book starts. I think this was a good strategy since it allowed for the world-stage to develop off-screen, however to me it also derailed some of that tension, since characters were rehashing the past few months, and we didn't get to see that 'live'. Oh well!
Two of my favorites, Melvin and Ezra, also reappear, which I was wondering if would happen. Hopefully other readers are as excited about that as I am/was. If you haven't read the prequel novella An Emporium of Hearts, I absolutely recommend!!
One thing I learned that I can share about Soren in this book (since it's not a spoiler) is that he's actually brown-haired. In my raving review of A Prince's Poisoned Vow, I compared him to Cloud from Final Fantasy VII and always imagined him as grey-eyed and blond, but I was wrongggg! Now I'll have to go back and re-read in order to fix my mental imagery of the badass (but brown-haired) warden. (boohoo, another reread!)
In terms of characters you love to hate, Eimarille and Terilyn really take the cake. Man, I absolute hate them!! And yet you can't help but love their love for each other and Eimarille's son, Lisandro. This was a great balance to have throughout the trilogy since, with many POVs, you inevitably take sides on who's in the right or wrong, but it's a window into 'what the other side' is up to, and in the first book, you really have no idea from the start what direction each character is going to go. This is a valuable balance that I think gets missed out on in stories that I wouldn't rate at the same high tier of this series.
Things that I wish had happened, in order to make a thousand-page book instead of 660:
1. More Blaine and Honovi time. Don't worry!!! They are there!!! But I would have loved to see more of them. After Vanya and Soren, they are my favorite couple, and it would have been great to see even more of E'ridea through their eyes. Alas!
2. I think the tension could have been handled a little differently in a number of places (particularly the beginning 20% of the book or so) so that the reader isn't primed for 'the next big thing' that's going to happen due to explicit explanation from Eimarille's POV. To avoid spoilers I won't go into more detail, but I would happily, haha.
3. I wish there had been more magic! I know that's a weird thing to say, since this is a fantasy trilogy and there's magic everywhere, but as an example, we got to see more into the world of the wardens in book two, but they kind of fell to the background in book three. Same thing with Klovod, Caris' engineering, and even the military magic we see from Solaria. I guess the takeaway is that innovation as a catalyst pretty much ended in book two, which makes sense as book three had to start winding things down to a conclusion, but that doesn't mean I didn't miss it. Starfire was the reigning champion for this book throughout.
I am looking forward to the audiobook coming out and listening along to Guy Furlong's narration! He did a great job for books one and two, and that's definitely how my next reread of The Queen's Starfire Throne will happen. :)
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