This is clearly the best of the three as often happens with the third in a trilogy. Many of the details about the characters were being held until this novel as trump cards to add to the drama that plays out through the story. As a result, the characters convey better depth and their motives become more complex, creating a stronger sense of empathy with the audience. Even the writing itself has become stronger with greater aesthetic details, poetic language, and variance in sentence complexity. As for the overall story, this is surprisingly the least dark of the three, and the ‘mysterious’ aspects of the text begin to unwind, offering a greater understanding to the reader about the world and its history. Ultimately, though, I still believe that a hundred pages more per novel focused on the psychology of the characters and the aesthetics of the literature would have made each text significantly stronger throughout. Stories like these, with an interesting concept and mythology, are too often rushed, when they could be considered as long-term treasures for literature if there were more layers of conflict and depth laced throughout the story and characters.-Lindsey Miller, www.lindseyslibrary.com ( )