I tried so hard to like this book. It had so much potential. However, I felt like it was super all over the place. I am also a fan of Chaol, so I didn’t not enjoy the book because of Chaol.

Okay, so Chaol and Nesryn reach the Southern Continent to get Chaol healed and also get the khagan into Aelin’s war. It sounds promising, and I was hooked on that concept. However, I felt like the book went on one storyline and jumped to another, abandoned the one it jumped to, and would go back to the first storyline. Ahhh. I was confused throughout the whole book.

Yrene tried to save the book. She’s great, and I loved her. I think she was an awesome addition to the series. In fact, my favorite scene from the entire book was when she hurled herself at the princess. Quality content, Sarah! I laughed at that! I think Yrene is a super interesting character with a lot of development throughout the story. That being said, I also think that this book tried to be very character focused with Chaol and Yrene, so the plot kind of suffered because of that if that makes sense? Maybe not. Take that with a grain of salt.

All the little references to Aelin, Rowan, and Dorian put a smile on my face as well. I just wish that this book would have been executed better, so I could enjoy everything.

I did read KOA before I read this, so I did kind of spoil the novella for myself, but regardless I still was not interested in the overall plot of the story. I felt like the book went from going super slow to “OH CRAP WE FORGOT THIS STORYLINE GOTTA GO BACK AND WRITE IT”. Anyways, I still love SJM and will read her further works because ToD is the only one I haven’t been impressed with!