Odette faces a vampire’s final death. The Court of the Lions have done everything they can to save her but have failed. A healer from the Sylvan Vale could help her, but only Arjun Desai, as a half fey, can cross the boundary between realms.
-GoodReads
My Review
Another amazing sequel to The Beautiful quartet. I will admit this book was nothing like the others in a lot of ways and yet it fit perfectly. This focuses more on Pippa and Arjun and holy cow was I there for that! i did miss having Celine and Bastien however and it didn’t always feel natural when we did get their chapters because of the change in focus so that’s the reason I’ve been nit-picky and given it 4.5 (rounded up to 5). But I also found The Beautiful and The Damned to both be five star reads so having this be the ‘weakest’ at 4.5, ain’t too shabby.
Ahdieh is really such a brilliant author, I love her style so much and I just find it too easy to sit down and finish her books in one sitting. She’s certainly a fave of mine after reading this quartet thus far. She’s descriptive without overloading you and great at making you so aware of what characters feel without feeling like she’s spoon feeding it to you.
Seriously though, Arjun in the Vale and Pippa showing up? KODAK MOMENT. I want a polaroid of that lol. Pippa was also so great, seeing her with more focus was really nice, I missed Celine and Odette but I greatly appreciated learning more about Pippa and seeing different sides to her. Arjun was way too easy to love, he’s basically me. A smarmy one who likes to deflect with humor…as are most of my fave characters…maybe I’m a little too self absorbed but dark humor for the win, damn it.
I loved the development of Pippa and Arjun together though I wish it had been drawn out more. Because time runs different in the Vale, what is really only one day for 60-65% of the book for Arjun and Pippa is more like a week or so back in New Orleans. That does feel a bit weird to be honest. That so much happens for one day for them.
The world-buildng grows in this book which I was really looking forward to, so Ahdieh did not disappoint on that at all (or anything else really lolol). We get more of the Vale we’re seeing the Summer and Winter courts and though I missed New Orleans, I feel we’ll get more of it in the next book or at least more of our favorite characters from it.
I also think that it would have benefited to have more of Celine and Bastien to tie them in more but I also feel like I could read a whole spinoff series about Pippa and Arjun.
Bastien’s still strong, my appreciation from last book really carried over in the glimpses we got of him. I will remain silent on Celine for now and just anticipate book 4. (I suppose I’ll get excited all over again when I get my Fairyloot edition of this)
I WILL SAY THAT ENDING THOUGH, AHHHHH
I’m not sure I’m going to be able to handle the final book tbh.
4.5/5 Cups of coffee from me! Thank you so much to the Publisher and NetGalley for an eARC of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.
The Caffeinated Reader 