The Empire of Gold

I really wish I liked this series more than I do. The third book is much stronger than the other two and the ending wasn’t as bad as I expected, but I still don’t feel like it was worth reading 700+ pages. Once again I had trouble connecting with all of the characters and the character I found more intriguing (Zaynab) gets maybe a paragraph of dialogue across the whole book. Couple that with some repetitive writing (if I read about a character’s eyes flashing one more time…) and call me bored. I kept reading only because I was curious to know if all 300 subplots would actually be resolved and I was pleasantly surprised that most were. I’m glad others enjoy this series and I’m VERY glad that I enjoyed this author’s other book because she had some interesting ideas.

Great finale! The relationships followed their arcs very naturally. As I said to a friend, there wasn't any "Now, kiss!" just to satisfy a whim.

The author clearly plotted out the the ideas here and left a clear, logical path across the three books. I like this world and the peek into Persian and other mythos. There was little mustache-twirling on the part of the main villain, but it wasn't too bad.