This review is for those who have read or are familiar with the previous books, Furyborn and Kingsbane, or don't mind knowing MAJOR spoilers for them.
SPOILER ALERT
Queen Rielle, pushed away from everything she loves, turns to Corien and his promises of glory. Meanwhile, whispers from the empirium slowly drive her mad, urging her to open the Gate. Separated from Audric and Ludivine, she embraces the role of Blood Queen and her place by Corien’s side, determined to become the monster the world believes her to be.
In the future, Eliana arrives in the Empire’s capital as a broken shell of herself. Betrayed and abandoned, she fights to keep her power at bay—and away from Corien, who will stop at nothing to travel back in time to Rielle, even if that means destroying her daughter.
But when the mysterious Prophet reveals themselves at last, everything changes, giving Rielle and Eliana a second chance for salvation—or the destruction their world has been dreading.
I've made no effort to hide how much Kingsbane's ending affected me. In fact, I've mentioned in several other reviews how depressed I was, and how I didn't plan on ever reading it again, regardless of my tradition of rereading series leading up to the latest book. It was really thanks to the audiobook that I ended up revisiting both Furyborn and Kingsbane, partly to refresh myself on the characters, but mostly so I could give a review of the audio throughout the series. And I will say, thanks in part to the year of letting my wounds heal, and having the expectation of devastation in my mind throughout the reread, I entered into this final chapter with a bit more hope than I last left off.
Firstly, I want to talk about the series as a whole leading up to this point. I did not realize upon starting this series that it was a dark fantasy. Even after reading the prologue of Furyborn, which spells out in detail where Rielle's story ends, I don't think I'd realized it yet. I think I was under the impression that while Rielle's story was laid out as a tragedy, Eliana's would act as something more upbeat and inspiring to balance everything out. Which was why Kingsbane's ending hit me so hard. Having Rielle hit her low at the same time Eliana suffered the ultimate betrayal just rocked me out of my preconceived assumption of where the story was heading and into outright despair. Rereading the series thankfully lessened the blow.
Now, I'm not saying this is the YA Game of Thrones—mostly because I haven't read that series, so can't really fairly compare—but I think this series might be a good YA introduction to that type of book. There are lots of political maneuverings, a special magic only available to one woman (in 2 time periods), 'on-screen' sex (though not too explicit, just more than a fade-to-black), beloved friends and family members meeting grizzly ends...and our main characters are far from flawless, especially as their stories progress. Even with the fantasy elements of magic and godsbeasts, the series is still very much grounded in the grim reality of politics, war strategy, and psychology.
The psychology in particular both fascinated and horrified me. As soon as Rielle's magic powers are revealed, the questioning she undergoes immediately shows how traumatic her childhood was. Not only did her magic cause her mother's death, but also her father's subsequent physical and emotional abuse: locking her away, drugging her, forcing her into secrecy, becoming emotionally distant and ultimately placing all blame on her, despite being 6 at the time. Thus we can understand, if not condone, her fear of showing any weakness before her loved ones (especially concerning accidents with her magic), and her seeking out unconditional love, even if it has some blood-red flags attached.
I admit, even paying attention to all her signs of psychological trauma in my rereads, I still found Rielle hard to sympathize with in Lightbringer. I think a lot of it was due to her lack of emotion, especially during one of her most violent acts. It wasn't until afterwards, in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it passage, that I realized that Rielle wasn't a fully reliable narrator anymore:
But I cannot stop thinking of the look on her face as she incinerated him: The shadows on her gaunt face. The furious molten gold of her eyes. One moment he was there. The next, there was fire, and he was gone. And before Annick and I fled, I looked back at Rielle and saw her trembling in the rain. She wept, her skin glowing with a faint gold sheen, and gazed across the sea toward the black eastern horizon. [pg 342]This comes as one of the pre-chapter letters about 75 pages after the event narratively took place. By that point I had entirely forgotten that Rielle had had tears—though she described wiping them away and turning them to flames—instead having focused on only her actions. Looking back, what initially appeared as a heartless villain consumed by greed was actually an obsession with the empirium masking a disassociation from her trauma.
Though, the obsession could also very easily be read as an addiction. In this book, Rielle really starts getting down and dirty with her magic. Sure, she's dabbled with the empirium before, seen it here and there in her trials and healing experiments, but now that Corien is fully in her life, she's being pushed into it more and more. There's even a point where she goes on a full-on trip into the empirium, waking from it only reluctantly. It's not an exact one-to-one drug metaphor, especially where Eliana is concerned, but the empirium certainly takes on a more sinister role here. Well, not sinister maybe as much as a double-edged sword, hurting Rielle even as it comforts her during her continued abuse.
Of course, this abuse stems from the actual villain of the series, Corien. Not only is he the supreme dictator of Eliana's dark future, but seeing him twist Rielle into his puppet all while feigning innocence and love for her was sickening. He even says the line, "Look what you've made me do," to Rielle when he's shaking her, hurting her, telling her that she won't ever be happy without him because he's the only one who could understand her. From emotionally abusing Rielle to outright torturing Eliana, Corien was one of the best villains I've ever read. Even understanding his motivations, his suffering and devastation, I still craved his ultimate comeuppance.
In that respect, I think Eliana was possibly the weakest character. No, not weak really, but least nuanced in that I've seen her before. I've seen the tough, sassy teen with a chip on her shoulder and a heart of gold forced to face adversity and heartbreak only to rise above and take on the biggest baddie of them all with the help of her friends. Eliana is the chosen one, the reluctant rebel leader, the rogue turned hero, and the phoenix rising, all in one. Yes, it's well written, but I was more interested in what was happening to her than what she was doing. It's funny now seeing how scripted her storyline was in comparison to Rielle's, whose ending was literally spoiled in the very first chapter of the first book.
But then, I guess that's where time-travel jazzes things up and keeps it interesting. Or makes them impossible, if you want to be logical about it. Yes, there's unfortunately a huge time paradox in the ending of this book. They kinda wave it away because magic, which at that point I was eager to accept just for something good to happen for our beaten and bloody protagonists, but I'm not sure that will work for everyone. I guess they do talk about multiple universes a bit, so maybe multiverse time theory is a possibility? I guess if you're a stickler for non-paradoxical storylines, you might want to skip this one, but I could give it a pass just to serve my own sense of spite towards Corien.
In terms of an ending for the trilogy, I thought this worked well. Were there things that I wish had gone differently? Sure. But I don't have any major objections. Every character got sufficient closure , even one I hadn't expected, but was so glad they did. For the amount of heartbreak and despair they suffered (and I along with them at times), I think there was still enough payoff to make it worth it in the end.
Overall, Lightbringer had some dark turns, but as a certain Prophet once said, "To rise, first one must burn," and it definitely turned up the heat. I didn't talk too much about the nitty gritty of the plot or the twists of this book, but honestly I didn't want to spoil more than I did. Just know that I was gripped at every step of the way, and had this not been a 12-hour read, I would have tried to devour it all in one go. I don't know that I'll be returning to dark fantasy soon, but for anyone who is a fan or is looking to dip their toes into the dark waters, I'd definitely recommend this trilogy. If you were as disheartened as I was after the second book, I can't promise it'll get easier to deal with the loss, but just as the title suggests, light is on the horizon if you can hang in there through the dark. And if nothing else, you can always let your hunger to see Corien suffer drive you forward.
Read by Fiona Hardingham
Unabridged Length: 24.3 Hours
Listened at 2x Speed
Unabridged Length: 24.3 Hours
Listened at 2x Speed
Really not much to add from my last reviews. Hardingham has a good range of voices for both male and female, aristocratic and commoner, as well as handling some pretty emotional scenes too. I'll admit that Audric's voice wasn't my favorite, but at least he was distinct enough for me to recognize among the cast of dozens. I did notice a slight slowdown at the beginning, but only because I was literally coming off the heels of the last book, and it righted itself during more intense scenes anyway, so no complaints.
Once again, I can't fathom why the production team chose to include the table of elements at the end of the recording. For those who are curious, this is what I'm talking about:
But, overall, I really can't bash the audiobook for one stupid decision, especially when it was carried over the same from the other books (though I thought it was stupid there too). It still delivers an awesome experience for anyone wanting to hear the conclusion of this epic dark fantasy trilogy.
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