M's Media Menagerie

My greatest enemy has always been myself. Over the past few weeks, I’ve painstakingly put my broken pieces back together, from the dark mysteries of my past to the heart-rending conflict of my present.

But just when I finally start to feel whole again, everything around me falls apart.

Lallakai, the newly ascended Queen of Shadow and Death, betrays us and takes Zak prisoner. Echo, the powerful fae I thought would help save Zak, threatens to kill me. And Ríkr’s nemesis, the ruthless Summer Queen, is hunting him again.

With the four ancient fae poised to battle for supremacy, I’m the only one who can prevent a catastrophic clash of their power. But stopping them will require more than druidic magic. It’ll take an act of destruction as devastating as they are.

I’m about to test the strength of my scarred heart, and if I fail, I’ll end up destroying everything—and everyone—I’m most desperate to protect.

everything comes together. the mystery of who killed arla is finally solved and things really go to shit. like, badly. lallakai, as i said, is a big ol cunt and then rìkr follows up with his own cunt moves.
anyone who was waiting for spice, this is the book: zak and saber finally do it after hardcore teasing one another for three books straight (not counting the oft-referenced one time they did it as teenagers). it’s brief each time but after all the fucking edging through three and a half books it feels quite nice to have them just be together.
the ending feels earned as well, almost a relief after the stakes kept amping to greater and greater heights.

^written immediately after

I finally finished this series! Which, after a long reading drought, is a big thing for me since I slammed this back in days after I hit my stride. Like literally, I borrowed the first book from the library (they only had the first book, so I ended up buying the series digital) and procrastinated, then I got sick and unhinged my jaw and swallowed four books.

It’s sitting comfortably in the urban romantasy genre, where I would read all four books as one big story rather than four separate stories. The whole thing is perfect for people who love angsty grumpyxgrumpy romance full of yo-yo feelings and the author doing their best to shepherd the characters in the situations that would make them grow best. Like the other Guild Codex spinoff I read (Demonized, which I still like best so far), the romance is a slow burn until they have two very quick fucks (which if the reader is Anti-Fuck, each is only perhaps a page and a half and skippable as there is no plot in them) and admit to each other that they’ve been into one another since they were kids. Fuck dude, I bet Zak never even banged Lallakai like she kept implying, he’s so hung up on Saber.

The stakes rapidly grow in each one and yet, for those of us who wonder, what about Saber’s job? There’s an answer for that. Every little loose end is covered fully. thank GOD. Every character has their own thing going on and while Saber’s primary story is in this, we do get heavy implications that Zak has had his own in-canon adventures as the “I Know a Guy” in the main Guild Codex universe.

Which, I think for some readers, may be a bit of a lot to deal with— this is a spinoff of a long series, which has several recommended reading orders, one of which is thus:

I have read 8 of these books in series order rather than chronological (which is the order here). Part of the joy of reading this series, and the annoyance to some, is meeting familiar characters who influence each story. Some characters mesh weirdly with the mood (Kit Morris speaks mid 2000/2010s internet and shows up in the grumpfest of the Unveiled series here), and while there is no expectation of readers to know who they are, readers may get annoyed at the dynamics some characters have already. You can tell these characters all have their own life and don’t exist solely for this story.

I can see people getting annoyed at the yo-yo of Saber and Zak, which is less a will-they-won’t-they and more of a JUST TALK ABOUT IT. I liked the dynamic myself, as I like it when my romance is filled with the angst-riddled selfishness of people who are avoiding the problem as best as they can.

Despite the flaws of the series, I really enjoy it! I feel like the action-packed emotional roller coaster of the series is a lot of fun to read. There’s rarely any moment where you feel like it’s dragging, as even during the downtime in the book, we’re moving forward with one part or another. Someday I will just own the entire series. Not now… but soon.