I am back with another book review, The Beauty of Darkness by Mary E. Pearson, the final book in the Remnant Chronicles.
In keeping with my book resolution this year, I am happy to say that I have now completed reading this series and I really enjoyed it.
This book was filled with the same action as the first two but felt more refined and calculated - you could really see the growth in Pearson's writing.
Before I get too far into this review, just be warned that there will likely be spoilers for book one and two, but I will try to avoid anything from book three.
The story picks up immediately where book two left off, Lia has just escaped and is trying to make her way back to Morrighan to save her kingdom. I won't go into specifics but there are battles, coups, and court advancements. There is really too much to sum up in a couple sentences but those are the general themes.
Despite the fact that this book is almost 700 pages long, I think the pacing was very well done. There was a lot happening but I think that every page was important and necessary to the story overall. The pacing was not too slow, a concern I had with a book of this size, but it wasn't too fast, where details were cut out. I think it could have stood to be a little faster but it didn't cause problems for me.
This book also addresses the love triangle situation that was kind of going on with Kaden, Rafe, and Lia. At the end of book two, she has pretty much chosen. This book kind of put the romance on the back burner, not necessarily because it wasn't important but because it was resolved for the most part. I liked where things ended up with both Kaden and Rafe. I actually liked the ending with the romance, I thought it said enough to tell of what happened after but it didn't worry about explaining every small detail.
I really liked Lia's character in this book, I thought she was really strong and kick-butt. She had her moments of emotion but she didn't let that or anyone stand in her way. There were definitely some moments where she stood up for herself when her authority was questioned, which I loved.
I know this book has a lot of mixed reviews but I personally enjoyed it and definitely think it is worth the read.
Overall, I really enjoyed this series and highly recommend.