The third book in the Will Darling trilogy! I've had this book since it came out, but I had put off reading it in part because the second book didn't work for me as well as the first one had and so I was sort of afraid it wouldn't land, either.
I am delighted to report that my fears were unfounded! I really, really liked this one - the relationship between Will and Kim had new and believable conflict, instead of what was for me a recycled loss of trust/proving his sincerity etc. arc in the second novel. I also really enjoyed the overall mystery, which was both pretty twisty and resolved in a way that felt both surprising and like it fit. It's a really good conclusion for this world, and its connection to the Think of England books was also very satisfying. (It was also an interesting book to read in between the second and third books of the Regeneration trilogy, given the setting and how big a specter the Great War is in their lives.)
If I have any complaints about this book, it's that the author has once again introduced a sex act Chekhov's gun, i.e., the characters discuss doing something together and it's a whole thing and then they...don't. In this particular case, before the topic came up I was perfectly fine with Will never bottoming, and the emotional resolution of them actually talking about their feelings instead of fucking about them was good and satisfying, and I know that even in romance novels the desire to zig instead of always zagging is appealing, but also it feels like narrative edging to me and not the good kind! You can give us the emotional resolution AND the dangled carrot of New Sex in a later scene! Sigh. Still, even with that minor complaint, this third book was good enough that I can now wholeheartedly recommend the whole trilogy without any major reservations.
Grade: A
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