YES we are back with Nikolai and Zoya AND Nina??? Love it love it love it. 

I have to admit that the events of Ruin and Rising are slightly hazy to me now. BUT I am still pretty fresh off Crooked Kingdom and I was READY to see what came after. While I will miss the crows endlessly it's good to see Nina trying her absolute best to be the best version of herself. And by that I mean infiltrating Fjerda and doing her absolute girl boss best to put her training as a soldier in Ravka and a spy in Ketterdam to use. I love the nods to what she has learnt from the other crows in the previous duology, and I can't wait to see where Nina goes from here. Maybe I'm just overly attached but her story was the much more interesting one to me in this book. 

That isn't to say I didn't enjoy Nikolai and Zoya's parts of the book though. Nikolai was my favourite character in the original trilogy and I'm so happy to be reading from his POV this time as he tries to be the best king he can be to a struggling Ravka. Zoya our girl boss just getting better and better as we begin to get her backstory and see how she develops throughout this book. 

In short, some of my favourite characters (goodbye crows I'll miss the rest of you guys) all in a single book? I gave it five stars because I can see myself rereading this in the future for sure.