Reviewed by Carrie Spellman for TeensReadToo.com

NOTE: This is the third book in a trilogy, just in case you were unaware, and if you can make sense of this story without having read the first two... You're either amazing or scary.

Merle, Vermithrax, Junipa, and, of course, the Flowing Queen, have just barely escaped Hell and Lord Light with their lives. Although none of them is, or will ever be, quite the same. Thanks to the stone light, Vermithrax has turned from regular stone to a nearly impenetrable obsidian, and Junipa's heart is no longer human. Merle is not sure who she can trust, and that includes herself. The Flowing Queen, while not absent, is considerably more silent now. But these personal issues are only the beginning of their problems.

Winter has made his escape as well. He is on a manic hunt for Summer, his only true love. And a blizzard of snow and ice both follows and precedes him. The deserts of Egypt are covered, and all their inhabitants, including our heroes, are in danger of freezing to death. Well, maybe not Vermithrax. Unless they can locate the Iron Eye, the fortress of the sphinxes.

At the Iron Eye their current "mission" will finally be complete. For better or worse. No one is clear on what specifically needs to be done. (Except maybe the Flowing Queen, but she doesn't seem to want to share.) What is clear is that it will take every one of them, and each of their unique abilities, and even some unexpected help, for them to save the world they know. Survival is a completely different concern.

From the very beginning this book overflows with information, and there is no pause. You, as the reader, are almost as exhausted as the characters! There is no time for back history, so you might want to brush up on it before you start this book.

The characters you have come to love, or hate, are all back. Even some that you thought were gone for good. More then a few of them have surprises for you. You just may find yourself changing your opinion of some of them.

This book is literally so fast and furious that my mind is still reeling from it!

I promised you a view of the trilogy as a whole, and I give it five stars. It's absorbing and intricate and frenetic. But, I'm changing my pop culture reference. I see it more like Lord of the Rings. You could experience it in pieces, and it's pretty good. But the impact as a whole is so much greater. Take a day, or a weekend, if you can, and read them all at once. You won't be disappointed. ( )

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 ( )