Actual rating: 2.5 stars. Foreseen this I could have not. I was slightly pissed off when I wrote my crappy pre-review nonsense for this book. Now I'm still kinda sorta slightly pissed off, but this is still one of my favourite series ever and Shanti is one of the Mostest Wondrousest Female Characters Ever (MWCE™), so I decided to be uncharacteristically kind and magnanimous and considerate, and go for a full 3-star rating instead of a 2.5-star one. Pretty sure it will do wonders for my karma, too. It's okay. I can do this. Of course I can. I'm nefarious and stuff. I can surely survive not fangirling about this book, when I have been slightly raving about this series for the last two bloody shrimping years. I can do this, I can do this, I can do this. No biggie. Right. In order to ensure my survival, I think I better try and make this short, and as painless as possible. Here goes. ➽ How to effectively ruin the conclusion to a brilliantly scrumptious series: ① Stretch things out to oblivion: The events that take place here should have been part of an instalment in this series, but definitely not a whole book. This feels watered down. This feels diluted. And this feels bloody neverending. Which, at 318 pages, is quite a feat. Yay. ② Blah blah blah your readers to death: The dialogues in this series have always been of the deliciously snarky, hahaha, bloody shrimping awesome kind. Here? YAWN. They just go on and on and on and on and on ad nauseam. Bleh, meh and stuff. ③ Turn your beloved ass-kicking, bloodthirsty, slightly antisocial heroine into a disgustingly mushy protagonist. Yuck yuck yuck, EW EW EW. Okay, so Shanti is still as deliciously cut cut cut slice slice slice as ever (thank our Lord Shrimp for that!), but it still doesn't make up for her becoming such a lurve…Thing. And it kind of makes her come across as having been "tamed" or something. And that, my Little Barnacles, sucks BIG TIME. Especially when you know what Shanti was like at the beginning of this series: all tough and independent and girl power and men are pathetically useless (and uselessly pathetic) and one day women will rule the world and stuff. Now it's all Cayan this and Cayan that I am in lurrrrve and please excuse me while I slightly puke. ④ End it all in a blaze of revolting HEA of Doom and Destruction. A bloody shrimping proposal? Talk of bloody shrimping BABIES? What is this? Freaking PNR or something? Oh, damn, I think I'm going to be sick again. (view spoiler)[ (hide spoiler)] Okay, you know what? Fish it all to hell. I'm done being uncharacteristically kind and magnanimous and considerate and stuff. Back to a 2.5-star rating we go. Because some things will NOT do. And because some things are just NOT done. Bye now. Sorry, no time for a moral today, I'm off to get slightly wasted in an effort to forget this book ever existed and stuff. · Book 0.5: Forged in Blood ★★★★ · Book 1: Chosen ★★★★★ · Book 2: Hunted ★★★★★ · Book 3: Shadow Lands ★★★★ · Book 4: Invasion ★★★★★ · Book 5: Siege ★★★★★ [Pre-review nonsense] Actual rating: 2.5 stars. Foreseen this I could have not. Bloody shrimping hell, K.F. Breene, what have you done? ►► Full Not Even Sure I Want to Review this One 'Cos Disapointment is Me and Stuff Crappy Non Review (NESIWtRtOCDiMaSCNR™) to Come. Maybe. [October 31, 2016] Oh, bloody hell, they got Shanti's hair color wrong again. She is blonde, you people who designed the cover, BLONDE. Oh, well. This will be the last instalment in the series so I guess all hope of Shanti getting a decent dye job is lost now. But anyway. What I originally wanted to say was: