** spoiler **
I’m glad that I kept reading this series, as I really enjoyed book no. 3.
I understood the political side of things better which in turn made the story more interesting. It also made me ask myself, on more than one occasion, how I would be and (re-) act if I was part of this world and had to deal with intrigues and the furtiveness of some of the higher inhabitants of Fairie.
Jude felt more real to me in this book than in the other two, plus, on the whole, I connected more with most of the characters which made the reading experience sooo much better.
It also made it easier to gauge the relationships between them.
Though I sometimes thought that Jude and Cardan were being unreasonably stubborn and dramatic when it came to their attraction for one another, I had to remind myself where and how they grew up. Living in Fairie, where trust is something you can’t really afford, it couldn’t have been easy to just throw caution to the wind and admit your feelings to one another. It would have been stupid even, if we didn’t know that they actually can trust each other.
Overall, the stakes were high in this book and anything could’ve happened really, but I enjoyed the ending very much! I don’t want to give away too much but it fit the story and the characters well, in my opinion.
There were a few things that felt a bit odd – for example, neither Oriana nor Madoc identifying Jude’s voice when she doubled as Taryn. I’d argue that their ‘parents’ should be able to discern things like that.
Ultimately, I had a good time reading this. My guess is, that I would’ve enjoyed it more in my teens.
The series on a whole still won’t be part of my favourites, but I’m not mad that I’ve read it. There were a few lovely nuggets in it and enough parts that I tried to translate into our real world, trying to figure out how I’d react or live.
