Gothic, gritty, and unrelentingly, dreary, this conclusion ties up the series in a way just a unique as the rest of the story. But it also bogs down in several places, especially in the beginning, with pity party soliloquys and teen romance angst. That never detracts overmuch from the uniqueness and wonderful nuances of this series.

Story: Raine has escaped into the Fault with Esher and Sanvaunt, beaten and with one mission: find the Queen of the Feathers. Meanwhile, Ovitus has gathered his forces and with the help of his mysterious hound, is threatening to destabilize their world. Can they find their way out of the Fault to confront him?

McDonald is great with characters and certainly these have been interesting to follow through the three book journey. With this third volume, we get even more distinct characters: Malduin, Mathilde, the return of Castus, and more. All are wonderfully flawed and never idealized or pat.

But at the same time, a lot of the pages in this book are given to Raine constantly speculating on being in love with both Sanvaunt and Esher at the same time. And if not waxing on and off about those relationships then it is about her own failings and shortcomings. It made for a lot of 'filler', especially considering so much of the book is about mindlessly fighting to get out of the Fault.

I greatly enjoyed this series with the caveat that it is very heavy - there are no light moments and it can be a hard weight to bear at times. It felt very fatalistic, enough so that I never went into it if I was down. That said, it is a rewarding read.

Note: I listened to the audio version and the narration was excellent. It really elevated the story to hear it with a Scottish accent. Reviewed from an advance reader copy provided by the publisher.Gothic, gritty, and unrelentingly, dreary, this conclusion ties up the series in a way just a unique as the rest of the story. But it also bogs down in several places, especially in the beginning, with pity party soliloquys and teen romance angst. That never detracts overmuch from the uniqueness and wonderful nuances of this series.

Story: Raine has escaped into the Fault with Esher and Sanvaunt, beaten and with one mission: find the Queen of the Feathers. Meanwhile, Ovitus has gathered his forces and with the help of his mysterious hound, is threatening to destabilize their world. Can they find their way out of the Fault to confront him?

McDonald is great with characters and certainly these have been interesting to follow through the three book journey. With this third volume, we get even more distinct characters: Malduin, Mathilde, the return of Castus, and more. All are wonderfully flawed and never idealized or pat.

But at the same time, a lot of the pages in this book are given to Raine constantly speculating on being in love with both Sanvaunt and Esher at the same time. And if not waxing on and off about those relationships then it is about her own failings and shortcomings. It made for a lot of 'filler', especially considering so much of the book is about mindlessly fighting to get out of the Fault.

I greatly enjoyed this series with the caveat that it is very heavy - there are no light moments and it can be a hard weight to bear at times. It felt very fatalistic, enough so that I never went into it if I was down. That said, it is a rewarding read.

Note: I listened to the audio version and the narration was excellent. It really elevated the story to hear it with a Scottish accent. Reviewed from an advance reader copy provided by the publisher.

I picked this book up without realizing it was book 3 in a series. However, I do feel it gave me some fairly good recap to understand what was going on and I was able to follow the story well. I think my biggest hindrance with this story was the relationship angst between the three characters. If this had been book one, it could have been setting a stage for something more, but discovering it was the third in a series made me feel we should be past this particular aspect of the group dynamic.

I was drawn to the story due to the magic and the necromantic elements within. Raine is a pretty cool character and I am interested to find out more about that in the first two books. The trio is also in a dark place called The Fault which is almost a sort of Hellscape they need to try and escape to return to their realm and continue their fight so all is not lost in the war which is still raging.

I will say the author has a really great way with words and his turn of phrase is one I admire. The world he creates is dark and gritty which is quite a perfect compliment to the magic systems he's focusing on. The reader can feel the eerie vibes as well as the emotion of the characters. I do think I would have loved to see more focus on the end of the world rather than the love triangle but perhaps that's my thought and not the general consensus.

*** Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher - Tor Publishing Group - for this ARC in exchange for a review.

AUDIOBOOK RATING (production, narrator, etc.) - 5 STARS
BOOK RATING - 3 STARS

This was an okay conclusion to an okay series which pains me to say. I wanted to see what Ed McDonald would do with a different magic system from that found in the Raven’s Mark trilogy. The Redwinter Chronicles’ magic system is fascinating, and the world proved to be as dark as McDonald’s previous trilogy, but this series is not a favorite and probably won’t stick with me.

There’s a time skip between book two and this one. While there’s a summary of prior events at the beginning of the book, I still felt lost trying to understand what was happening. The writing style relies heavily on info dumping, and the magic in this world is nebulous and difficult to understand.

Raine is so full of angst it’s painful to read. It’s not a problem in the first book because she’s still acclimating to her circumstances, but it builds with every book. The first third of this book focused on how attractive she found her friends, how much she loved them, and how she just did not deserve their love or friendship because of the awful things she’s done (and plans to do).

The relationships took precedent to a purpose which isn’t revealed until the latter half of the book, but by then it was too late. I still felt nothing for these characters, nor did I feel the romantic tension. Or maybe it was that I was more intrigued by the world (it’s literally ending) and magic (necromancy) rather than the characters.

I'd recommend the audiobook which was read by Samara MacLaren; however, I'd definitely recommend immersion reading over just listening.