Synopsis
The New York Times bestselling series!
Magical forces clash and Erthia hovers on the brink of ruin in the can’t-miss finale of Laurie Forest’s epic fantasy series, The Black Witch Chronicles!
Who can survive the Shadow storm?
Black Witch of prophecy Elloren Gardner Grey has unleashed her powers and embraced her legacy as a Dryad and guardian of the Forest. But the losses—of life, of love—have been almost too great to withstand as the Shadow continues to devour the world. With only a tattered shred of hope remaining, the Bearers of the Wand of Myth must battle their way back to each other to mount a final stand.
But Elloren and her allies are not only facing Mage Vogel’s advancing forces—the armies of the Eastern Realm will stop at nothing to see the Black Witch struck down.
With Elloren’s bonded mate prophesied to kill her, Shadow demons rising, and the ties between allies unraveling, can this fracturing world unite to face down the coming storm?
Read all the books in the Black Witch Chronicles!
*Also available in print in The Rebel Mages anthology
Audiobook review
Audiobook review (length 31 hours)
Some parts I really disliked and other parts I liked.
That would be between 2 and 3 stars I guess??
Also I hope Laurie Forest WON’T read this review because I will be brutally honest and that breaks my heart as this has been one of my favorite and so underrated series!
I think Laurie is an amazing writer BUT I have major problems with this last book.
Let’s go with a like and dislike
What I didn’t like:
-the cheesiness!
The first 9 hours of the 31 hours of the audiobook everyone is falling in love. That was… too much! Suddenly every main character found someone very attractive (if they hadn’t previously) and they were the most brilliant/beautiful/courageous yada yada…
–the message hammering
This books HAS important messages: unity makes us stronger, diversity makes us better, it’s time to stop destroying our climate and aligning with nature etc. But repeating it over and over ad nauseam just had me bored and angry. I KNOW that. Repeating it all the time was counterproductive and left me with the impression of bad editing. Whole parts of the books could have been cut or shortened and it still would have worked!
–the mass forest destruction. Described in details and repeatedly.
On the one hand, I reckon that it helped ratchet the tension and the feeling of desperation and doom. But for someone climate depressed like me it was just unbearable to read. I had anxiety while listening. It simply was excruciating.
As you can see it switched between syrupy love scenes and unbearable forest destruction scenes.
Talk about whiplash!
It felt like a big filler and if it had been any other book, any other author I would have DNF. But being the ending of the series I wanted to know what happened.
What I liked:
–Tierney/Or’mir tandem. They were the only couple I didn’t want to throttle. And Or’mir was kind of badass in that installment.
-that we got to read about the « after » the villain has been felled but…
Not often do we get to read about crisis management once the war is over.
-the epilogue.
This books has been a massive disappointment and that makes me so sad. But I will still recommend this series like one of my favorites. Just lower your expectations a lot for this last book.
Thanks for reading.
Sophie
I understand the anxiety around the forest destruction scenes too. It’s tough when a book touches on such emotional topics repeatedly.
Thanks for sharing your honest thoughts. It’s always helpful to hear both the good and the not-so-good aspects. What book are you planning to read next?
I am planning on reading Onyx Storm ;-)
This series failed me when my fave character was killed off – didn’t read the last 2 books!
I would have been out since it’s 31 hours, but to listen for that long and be disappointed is terrible.
Sorry the ending failed for you. That’s a bummer.