Spoilers Below!
In preparation for Queen of Air and Darkness, I reread both Lady Midnight and Lord of Shadows. I can’t believe I forgot so much that happened from when I last read this book about a year ago! I think that this book was an improvement from Lady Midnight overall. This book leads really well into the plot of Queen of Air and Darkness and leaves you on a sort of cliffhanger.
First of all, the characters remained pretty similar in the amount I liked them. I found that Julian and Emma continued to be annoying, and I didn’t like their relationship throughout the book. I liked how Kit and Ty became closer friends, but I felt like they weren’t anything special. Also, Dru was barely present throughout the book, and she didn’t contribute much to the story either. All she really did was introduce Jaime. I found that Diego and Jaime were kind of unnecessary and they didn’t really do much. With Livvy, I felt like her death was random, and I can’t think of anything it would have done other than open up the story so that it was more about the other Blackthorn children.
With Cristina, Mark, and Kieran, I didn’t really know what I felt about them. I think that Cristina was an interesting character, but there wasn’t much to her. She didn’t have much of a role, and I felt like the only thing she did was help provide something to split up Mark and Kieran with. I actually felt really bad for Kieran in this book and he kept on getting betrayed so I hope he’s finally happy in Queen of Air and Darkness. I can’t decide whether I like or dislike Mark too because he’s trying to do what’s right but at the same time hurting others.
I liked how Annabel carried through this book, and I really like her as a character. I feel like she’s a good “villain” because she has her motives and she’s trying to do what she thinks is right. The politics stuff at the end surprised me and I think it was an interesting setup for the next book. With Malcolm, he wasn’t really present in this book (because of his death) but I liked how his presence carried through the book with Annabel and the Clave. With all the the other miscellaneous characters (from the prior novels), it was nice how they made small appearances but I don’t think that they were meant to contribute much besides that.
I found that the plot of this slowly got better throughout the book. Overall, I found it to be more interesting than Lady Midnight (it was kind of a setup). I liked how there was more about the seelie and unseelie courts as well as faeries in general. It remains on the slower side, but in some parts, there’s enough detail to keep it interesting.
Overall, I enjoyed this and it was better than I remembered it to be. This leads nicely into Queen of Air and Darkness and I’m excited to see where the story will go next.