Her favourite authors include Jen Williams, Anna Stephens and Joe Abercrombie; her favourite castles include Kidwelly, Carreg Cennen and Pembroke. The idea of Bone Shard Magic remains a fascinating concept to me as well as the lore of the islands. So many questions are answered in this final instalment, we learn so much about the Alanga, their artefacts, witstone and the Ossalen.

I kept feeling like she was being irresponsible, chasing after things and trying to best Dion like she was competing against Bayan for keys again. She also had a very important encounter with Jovis sometimes during that period but we, readers, are robed of that scene. You say you’re doing this for the greater good, but how many tyrants have used that to justify the pain they’ve visited on innocents? Characters I didn’t much care for in the first book I came to love by the end, characters like Phalue.And hope was a clinging, grasping thing, an ember that refused to be extinguished no matter how much sand I heaped atop of it. this book reads like one of my university essays - a long-winded crowd of words, circular arguments, saying the same thing in different ways over and over, anything to reach the word limit in time. My favourite characters throughout the trilogy have always been Jovis and Lin, I connected with their first person narratives much better than the third-person narratives of Ranami and Phalue, they’re always an after-thought for me sorry. In this world and among these characters, I felt immediately at home and eager to see where this is going. I also felt it was unfair to manipulate Phalue into joining her quest by withholding help when she knew Nephilanu was under attack.

For me, I loved the way history was constantly repeating itself, I loved Stewart’s exploration of the ways in which people and societies can fall back into the same ruts and mistakes. I compared Nisong's arc to Dolores's from Westworld in previous books because they really mirror each other in a lot of ways, the biggest being that there is a powerful man behind their suffering and when they "woke up" they decided to raise hell.

If the first trilogy by Andrea Stewart is already this well-polished, I think the potential for her next series to be superior is massive, and I am excited to find out. Told in alternating POV’s of our favorite beloved and disliked malevolent characters, Stewart perfectly planted small breadcrumbs or memory bridges from previous stories if you will, without sounding repetitive while keeping the plot moving forward. Even Jovis finds a friend amongst the Ioph Carn, although theirs is an amusing love-hate relationship throughout! I don’t like that Lin keeps repeating past mistakes when in reality she’s a very clever character and I feel like she should of been a bit more wise to certain situations.

Lin has two sets of enemies vying to destroy her and bring the empire to its knees, Jovis is believed dead but when rumours of The Maelstrom, an Alanga with such incredible powers who is wreaking havoc across the islands begin to circulate, people begin to wonder if this could be the same person they once thought of as their hero.We find Jovis, a beloved favorite character of mine, roaming The Endless Sea and under Kaphra’s ruling command. Despite a few minor issues I have with The Bone Shard War, I do love this final installment almost as much as The Bone Shard Daughter. If I don’t get jittery reading a book when I know a War is going to kick off then I feel like there’s issues.