The Winter Solstice. In a week. I was still new enough to being High Lady that I had no idea what my formal role was to be. If we’d have a High Priestess do some odious ceremony, as lanthe had done the year before. A year. Gods, nearly a year since Rhys had called in his bargain, desperate to get me away from the poison of the Spring Court to save me from my despair. Had he been only a minute later, the Mother knew what would have happened. Where I’d now be. Snow swirled and eddied in the garden, catching in the brown fibers of the burlap covering the shrubs My mate who had worked so hard and so selflessly, all without hope that I would ever be with him We had both fought for that love, bled for it. Rhys had died for it

Ahh Velaris, Court of all the feels and emotional wreckage. Whilst it took me a good few chapters to get into the flow of the book, I now reckon it’s actually genius on the part of Sarah J Maas. Everyone is disjointed on the inside, struggling to come to terms with the ruin and the memories. Things can’t go back to happy families and nor should they straight away. The solstice, the perfect sticking plaster to banish the darkness, if only for a night – to return to what once was.

The depiction of mental health, as in ACOMAF, has been really well captured and the depth of emotions I experienced when reading this was quite overwhelming, bringing back all the memories from earlier books. I loved how it wasn’t all about the inner circle too, the whole of Velaris needs to be rebuilt and many have lost close to everything. There are so many amazing things begun by Feyre and the others, I hope we get to see snippits on how those projects fair in the future spin off books.

Would I liked it to have been longer? Of course, but it was always made clear that this would be a novelette. This book has reminded me of how much I love these characters and what they have already gone through and have yet to achieve – now I have to go cry into my glass of wine again, as this series has ruined me for real life again, lol.

5 glorious Starfall stars!