Spoiler-Free Review

The Nightshade God is the conclusion to the Nightshade Crown trilogy. Here are my reviews for the first two:

• Book 1: The Foxglove King
• Book 2: The Hemlock Queen

Thanks to Orbit and Netgalley for the ARC. All opinions are my own.

What’s The Nightshade God about?

Lore must use everything she can to not only survive the Burnt Isles, but to escape them and find a way to return the gods’ powers to the Fount.

It was interesting, if a bit too quest-focused.

This trilogy as a whole had some really strong moments from beginning to end that I really liked and appreciated. It had some dark magic and a darker tone, hints of matter-of-fact goriness here and there, religious intrigue, and romantic entanglements that were all very interesting.

Let me start with the things I definitely liked about this one. I think the ending and the epilogue provided something unique and interesting that still matched the tone of this trilogy. Actually, I think out of the entire book, the epilogue is the part I read most closely. In my opinion, it was a fairly bold choice that worked. It broke the mold that many romantic fantasy books have fallen into.

And yet, despite thinking this conclusion is pretty solid overall, I feel a little conflicted. I consistently picked this up to read, so I never felt like it lost my attention, but at the same time, some pacing issues seemed to nag at me.

I think my main critiques with this finale are threefold: one, this installment felt a lot more quest-like than the first two (which already isn’t my favorite), the quest elements also felt a bit repetitive since the entire story is built around it, and the characters were isolated from each other for the majority of the story. All of which meant that, while this book matched the first two in tone, it still felt markedly different.

But still. An interesting finale to follow an interesting trilogy.

Should you read The Nightshade God?

If you loved the first two books, you’ll like this conclusion. It’s worth reading. If you weren’t really into the first two, or if you really don’t even remember what happened in them, you might not be into this one.

This one releases on July 15^th.