Despite escaping The Hand's clutches, Robin Icethorn and his mismatched band of allies are determined to return and end his tyranny. But the risk to the Fey courts is even greater than they first realised, and death, destruction and darkness are never too far away...

I had thought this was the last in the series, but with that cliffhanger it hadn't better be! Seriously though, the latest in the 'Realm of Fey' series is full of gut punches; a real emotional rollercoaster! There is very little time for you to rest on your laurels; while the story doesn't progress at breakneck speed, it never leaves you with quite enough space to settle in to one emotion before throwing something else at the characters to take your feelings in a whole new direction. And when you finally get the the last few pages and are just waiting for a nice round off... yeah, I was not expecting that little plot twist! 

The author has managed to keep all of his existing characters meaningful in this one, which is an improvement over last time. But in some respects he's almost gone too far the other way; by introducing more new characters that seem to hold all the answers, he's given himself a good tool for exposition and clarifying the 'rule change' in the world, but hasn't quite succeeded in making them a part of his world. I think I would have preferred seeing the existing characters discover this new lore by themselves, or from the elders of the Courts which have been introduced previously, but not yet played any more than a background role.

There were moments during the climax that I had to read a couple of times over just to make sure I had made sense of things correctly; the pivot points weren't always the easiest to follow, understanding precisely what was going on required that second glance and the consequences of the action was not always immediately clear in any event. I'm not sure if this is somewhat down to me being a little tired when reading, but I'd suggest that perhaps utilising the first person narrative that the author has employed to give a bit of internal monologue to the audience and clue them in on the character's secret plans might have been warranted in this case. 

As there's no update on here as to when the next one will be released, I guess I'll just have to hold my breath until it appears! It's definitely a series I'm looking forward to continuing, and I Will absolutely be adding more of this author's work to my TBR shelf (an MLM Hades/Persephone retelling? I am so there!!!)