I'd been dying to read this one and NetGalley, blessedly, approved my ARC request, which I really enjoyed. 😁

This final installment of Blake's vampire series was action packed from the get go, with very little down time for Christian and Atlas, so there were zero worries about the pacing being too slow to hold my interest.

As the story began, the guys had just returned from Romania and were being actively pursued by the vampire council, but Christian and Atlas couldn't allow themselves to be captured, as they still had to prove the Wharram's involvement in creating the strigoi and save Christian's dad from being put to death.

The vampire council was basically a Gigantic Bag of Dicks™, who tended to kill defendants before fully investigating their possible involvement in crimes, so I was really thrilled to see that, as the story progressed, some members of the council finally began to believe Christian and Atlas' claims that the Wharrams and and Helias were the true guilty parties.

But by far, the final section of the book was my favorite, as the back-to-back battles were pretty insane, and the motherfuckers who *needed* to get some serious comeuppance finally got that shit, in spades.

I found the entire series both compelling and exciting and this last book was great at wrapping up all of the plot points in a very fulfilling way.

I'd rate this story at around 4.25 stars and recommend the series to any fans of vampires, without going all "Twilighty". 😏

Satisfying conclusion to the trilogy. A lot of times a "pretend we hate each other" plotline will drag on too long, but Grant managed it well, balancing maintaining the plot reasons for the deception with letting in enough characters at the right time. We get to see more of characters we already like, and grow to appreciate other side characters more. Interesting lore and political system, well crafted romance that you're rooting for, and a HEA that I enjoyed reading even though it felt a little deus ex machina at times.