The Snow Queen's Shadow

** spoiler alert ** Probably my least favorite of the series. It was still a good read, and it definitely concluded things, but it was pretty joyless compared to the rest of the series. I'm not thrilled about what happened with Snow and Gerta, but it worked well -- it was an effective way to deal with the romance that seemed otherwise unable to come to a Happily Ever After, and it certainly created a formidable foe. But lacking Snow's fairly lighthearted POV (even when she was the viewpoint character, it was the demon and not her) while everything else was doom and gloom meant it was less fun overall. I was also disappointed by how easily they dealt with the bargain with the Duchess at the end. Through the first book, the Duchess was set up as a huge Big Bad, and we'd spent four full books a) believing that was true specifically; and b) seeing that fairies are not to be trusted, fairy bargains are impossible to see all sides of, making a fairy is a very bad thing, etc. So it felt way, way too easy that they found such a huge loophole and then dispatched the Duchess pretty easily after so much build. All that said, the book was still fine! It was a good read and a decent conclusion. I just had quibbles.