Gripping world creation and an epic tale rammed with allegory and social comment. This action-packed saga of magic, oppression, love and betrayal is gripping on many levels and you really feel the doomed frustration of the vivid protagonists.. Wall-to-wall hopeless situations, desperate characters, chaotic relationships - an exhausting but fulfilling epic conclusion to this chronicle. Needs to be read in sequence and occasionally requires a clear head to keep track of who is where, but worth having this accomplished new writer on your radar

I have been eagerly anticipating this book since the last instalment in 2019 so I was absolutely desperate to get my hands on this and be back in the world of Zelie and Inan.

Sadly - I'm hugely disappointed. The entire story felt disjointed and lacked any real flow - there were disconnects in the story where bits of time were cut out and it felt like it was all just mashed together. We had an entirely new villain with no character depth, Amari realised she had an insta love new attraction (Good for her!), but it shut down the slow burn relationship with Tzain without any real acknowledgment or closure. Tzain becomes a massive warrior in 2 weeks, but without any real show of his growth as a character.

Zelie suddenly gets her super powers back after being dead for 5 minutes, Inan has no character development. The Maji lose their identity in the third book. Previous characters are lost to the story (Poor Roen). The ending is over in a paragraph and the epilogue has no real value to the story.

I wanted this to be a five star read because COBAB is one of the best books I've ever written, but it's like this book was entirely mashed together just to get it done. For something that took 5 years to write, to be the shortest book of the trilogy and feel like an entirely different character set / storyline is just hugely disappointing to me. I'M SO SAD!

No one is more gutted than me… :((
Zélie believed she had won. She seized the royal palace. The monarchy had finally fallen. The maji had risen again. Yet now, Zélie and her fellow comrades are locked in cages and trapped on a foreign ship. The Skull King wants her and her magic.

This felt like an entirely new book rather than a finale to a series. It discounted all the conflict of the first two books to concentrate on uniting against a foreign power.
Whilst this felt almost like a cheat out of the building plot from the first two books, I did like seeing more incredibly vivid worldbuilding as our characters ventured further from their kingdom.

I do appreciate that the romance never overtook the main plot as tends to happen in YA series. There was actually a nice twist which I thought enjoyed and think other readers will too!

“I teach you to be warriors in the garden so you will never be gardeners in the war.”

This was extremely fast paced and oddly short for what I was expecting. Yet it meant I flew through it, and I think this will appeal to transitioning readers.

However, the sudden change of purpose of the series and shortness did mean that certain arcs felt incomplete and certain characters were just never brought up which was a shame. Cough cough, Roën.
Moreover, the ending was extremely abrupt and left me feeling extremely dissatisfied.

All in all, I am crushingly disappointed. Book one was one of my favourite releases, but the series struggled to continue this momentum.

If you enjoyed this series, I would recommend The Gilded Ones!

Thank you to MacMillan for providing an archive of in exchange for a review!

This series will always hold a special place in my heart and I have been waiting to find out what happened to Zélie and her friends! I will admit, I wish I had re-read the first two books before I dived in as it has been a little while since I read them but luckily there was a recap at the beginning! Can we please make this standard for all fantasy series? So helpful!

It was really exciting to explore the expanded world beyond Orïsha and to meet new characters who seemed to slide seamlessly into the story, almost as if they'd always been there or were always destined to join the fight. The magic is unleashed on another level and it is both beautiful and horrifying depending on whose magic it is. I love the care and time given to each character, not only to show how far they have come individually but also their hopes for the future. This gave the book a really uplifting and empowering tone despite the, let's say, challenges and (slightly terrifying) antagonists and odds the characters are facing.

I felt a little lost once or twice as if I’d missed a connection or we jumped locations but maybe I missed a line or I was misremembering the earlier books. There was a lot going on!

This was a fitting finale for the epic series. I only (selfishly) wish this book was slightly longer at the end or we could have had a few more books! Can’t wait to read whatever Tomi Adeyemi writes next!

arc provided in exchange for an honest review.

I have waited so long to read this, I was very excited to dive back into the world that Tomi has built and I loved being able to read about the main characters again. Her writing doesn't disappoint, it definitely captured my attention and kept me glued to the story.

I didn't feel very connected to the story or the characters. It felt as if things were moving too fast for me to appreciate them, there is new characters and I would have loved to know more about them. There is more than just Orïsha in this story, again the pace threw me off and I found myself disappointed at the end of the book.

**Thank you to PanMacmillan and NetGalley for my e-arc!**

I am so conflicted at the moment. I’ve been waiting for this ever since that insane cliff hanger at the end of book 2. And to start with I was swept away with being back with Zélie and the gang. Back in the world of Orisha and the Maui. But the more I got into this the more I just felt lost. A new enemy that comes from nowhere and just doesn’t really have the impact I think he was meant to. The conclusion just… ugh. I wanted this to be a 5 star but so much of it just fell flat. Still well written, and engaging. The were elements here from the first two books in the trilogy that were familiar, but it almost felt like a spin-off as opposed to a grand finale. It's not bad by any stretch of the imagination, just a bit disappointing after the previous books. I will of course still be getting the hardback to finish off my collection (I have pre-ordered the signed, sprayed edged edition from Waterstones), but after how amazing book 1 and 2 were and how long we’ve had to wait for this I feel sad that it’s ended the way it has.

Going back to the land of Orïsha was like coming home and slipping into a warm blanket. It was perfect!

The last time we saw Zélie she had been fighting for her life, and then facing a white cloud that knocked her out. She woke in a cage and had no idea where she was. The Skulls had taken her, as they had been doing for some time now. But they were looking for someone specific. Zélie. But she is not alone, as her Brother, the Princess and the little Prince are all with them, plus all the Maji that were in the Palace at the time. Here she meets her new foe, King Baldyr, who wants Zélie's power to become a god. But he needs someone else. And Zélie plans to find this girl and save her from the Skulls and a mad king's hunger for power.

This was a beautiful conclusion to Zélie's story, one that has concluded her story in the best of ways. There is horror, hardship, grief and happiness that will leave you both satisfied while also wanting more.