I’m just glad their story is over, and yeah, I like how Nye’s side story was resolved. I think everyone goes through bad stuff sometimes, for some more than others. It’s too much like real life sometimes, and it’s kind of depressing and horrifying. She was feisty and had a happy, optimistic personality, loyal to the end, a fighter, down to earth, and empathetic. I didn’t care too much about the other secondary characters, except Seraph, because she was the most well-drawn. Reforming the villain is always a good story, because it’s a hard thing to do and very rarely accomplished. I think Akiem’s book The Black Prince will probably be even better than this one, because it’s clearly going to have love saves the world and changes you and makes you a better person themes. They were both good at heart but made mistakes, whereas Akiem was a villain who had a change of heart. Lysander and Eroan were pretty much who they were inside from the start. I thought Akiem however was a really interesting character and seemed to be the only character who became a better person in the end. There is just something so heteronormative about the characters and their relationships. Toxic masculinity was also expressed frequently in this series, including in Eroan with the way he led Nye on and Lysander’s enraged, bestial treatment of Mirran, and the males’ overall territorial behavior. I thought Lysander put Eroan on a pedestal for the most part, but I just didn’t like Eroan all that much. The scene I liked most in all 3 books was when Lysander spread his wing over Eroan. In this case, like Lysander whining in dragon form because his elf might be dead or dying. It’s because it really gets to you when an animal is sad, like koala bears in a bush fire crying piteously because they’re scared and burned and thirsty. Their grief and caring for and fear of losing each other tugged at my heartstrings, and those tender scenes were more interesting to me than the wild dragon-elf sex and the alpha male behaviors.

It had less graphic physical and sexual violence, and this time, I actually felt something for Lysander and Eroan whenever they were close to death, and saving each other as they do time and again. I liked this 3rd book in the series more than the first two.

Blood and ice ariana nash