Let's have a look at the third one! Spoilers ahead!
Serafina wakes up one day and find that she is now pretty much as close to dead as someone can humanly be. She has been "split" into three beings: Her catamount body, her human body and her soul, which is now separate from both physical vessels. Serafina realizes that there's only one possibility: the dark sorcerer Uriah is back. Serafina's spirit, completely useless and being unable to come into contact with most people, now must find a way to return to become one with her other two halves again. In this quest she finds an unlikely ally: None other than her enemy Rowena from the last book.
This one I really liked, honestly I think this might be the best one out of the series yet? I definitely had a great time reading it. Mostly because the book throws you right into the conflict: Serafina's spirit waking up in her coffin, escaping and realizing that she's now splintered into three beings: her consciousness and spirit, her human body (which is almost dead) and her catamount body (now just a mindless feral animal). We don't get any introductions, we don't see how this came to happen (not directly at least, though it's given to us later). We as the readers are literally just as clueless and helpless as Serafina is in this situation, and I think it's just written very effectively. Any mysteries we solve with Serafina's spirit we learn and put together alongside her. Her quest to return to her body was a pretty major part of this book, and I think it was executed very well.
You just feel her helplessness now that she's pretty much a ghost and can't get into contact with anyone. Heck, the only one who can really perceive her at the moment is her enemy Rowena, who isn't all that willing to help Serafina, at least no at first.
That's another aspect I think the book handles really well: Rowena. I was kind of mixed on her last book, but I love her arc here. She's very much struggling with herself and the fact that she has an evil sorcerer for a father, and is doubting her loyalties very much. At first she becomes somewhat of a reluctant ally to Serafina (though she might very well also betray her again, we never quite know where her allegiances lie at first), but over the course of the story she starts to realize that she doesn't have to live for her father; she can be her own person making her own decisions. She's done bad things in the past, but she decides that despite this she's going to own up to her mistakes and try to do better in the future. Which was just so great to read. I found Rowena to be not all that well-written or interesting in the last book, but her portrayal here definitely redeemed her character from me. She's never perfect or 100% a goody-two-shoes, but she's actively working on herself, trying to do better and trying to escape living under her awful father's shadow.
Now for an element I don't like in this story as much: Uriah. He's back once again and I just find him to be a very underwhelming villain. I don't find his motivations interesting, I don't find his powers interesting, he's just kind of your generic "evil irredeemable dark wizard" villain and doesn't have much more to him. Heck even the fact that he's a shadow of his former self was just kind of boring to me, I wish this book would've invented a different conflict rather than just facing Uriah again. The only saving grace with him as a villain in this book for me was his personal connection with Rowena. Sure, he also has a "connection", if you can call it that, with Serafina and Braeden (because they tried to kill him and almost succeeded), but that's just your generic hero-hates-villain conflict.
With Rowena it's much more personal because he's her father and he's basically been grooming her to be his shadow all her life. That's why she was a villain in the last book. He's not a good father to her (heck, he's outright abusive at times), but still she's kind of all she had for the longest time. So her unlearning her evil behaviors in this book and standing up against Uriah definitely hit hard here. Again, because her arc is so well-written and it also largely hinges upon their relationship as father and daughter, wizard mentor and apprentice.
But aside from that I still found him to be rather weak here. It was neat to see the cloak be used for good here this time in order to (hopefully permanently) lock up Uriah, though. Not that the cloak is good now, it's still a very bad thing, but it's kind of cool to see our heroes use such an evil item to defeat an evil wizard.
So overall: yes, I really liked this book. Especially the first two-thirds where Serafina can only communicate with Rowena and has to find a way to return to her body. The last third regarding defeating Uriah wasn't bad; I just think he's a very stereotypical and underwhelming villain so far outside of his relationship with Rowena.
Rating: 4/5
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