This series is about trauma and found family. It’s not an easy read but it’s also very engrossing read. I do love this series. The first three books focused on Feyre and her journey from human to High Fey. I’m not going to say she is over her trauma but thanks to Rhys and her new family she is in a much better place now then she was. Not something that can be said for her sisters, Nesta and Elain. In particularly, Nesta. This book focuses on Nesta and her trauma over the last few books and beyond. The eldest Archeron family, she was supposed to marry a Prince and continue to help rise the family but when misfortune struck her family she felt helpless and guilty that it was her youngest sister, Feyre that kept them fed. When she and Elain were brought into the Fey’s struggles and turned immortal by the Cauldran, Nesta’s troubles only got worst. She never had the opportunity to deal with the issues of her past life and then she’s thrown into a world strange to her and given more struggles to deal with it.

After the end of the war with Hybern, Feyre let Nesta to her own devices fearing that if she stepped in Nesta would just resent her but when Nesta continues to self destructs she finally can’t let it go on. She orders Nesta to train with Cassian in the morning and work in the library in the afternoon and live in the House of Wind. Nesta and Cassian have had a fiery relationship so it was only a matter of time before things really started to spark between them but this is not the relationship I want to talk about. Throughout the book she meets two other women. Gwyn, a priestess who also works in the library and Emerie, an Illiayrian with her own shop. Together they all train together and bond over their own personal traumas and become their own family. Gwyn and Emerie understand Nesta in a way that Feyre, Rhys and the others can not and she understand them too. It’s such a joy to see three women grow with each other and support each and lift each other up. They can just be themselves with each other as they all work through their own struggles. It’s not that female friendships are missing in this series, Feyre and Mor have a strong relationship but it was never the focal point like Nesta, Gwyn and Emerie are. I like reading strong female friendships and making it up front and center because it doesn’t happen very often. Even in YA novels that are mostly written by women. Friendships are usually secondary to the love line of the story. So yes, more female friendships.

This is such an incredible series because it has so many different elements of fantasy. Yes, it’s not always easy to read all the trauma that the characters have gone through but the characters in the story are well thought out and fleshed out. It’s worth the read for fantasy lovers out there.