A Court of Wings and Ruin

The third volume is one for readers already invested in Feyre and Rhysand, and it divides opinion. The series’ war comes into the open: spying inside the Spring Court, uneasy bargaining among the High Lords, and a romance tested by both. At 720 pages it drags for some readers, who also lose patience with characters they had liked before. Anyone lukewarm after two volumes will not be won over here.

Worth knowing A Court of Wings and Ruin, from 2017, closes the original trilogy: Feyre goes back to the Spring Court as a spy in Tamlin’s house, then returns to the Night Court for the war with Hybern, whose king holds the Cauldron that remade her sisters as High Fae at the end of the second book. It is the longest of the three at about 700 pages and the most crowded, with every court and most of the named characters on the field by the end. Sarah J. Maas followed it with the holiday novella A Court of Frost and Starlight in 2018 and with A Court of Silver Flames in 2021, which hands the series to Nesta. Readers who came for the romance of book two find this one is mostly war.

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