A thrilling finale to McDonalds second trilogy. Stutters and stumbles a little, but has you in it's grips throughout. Raine is a force to be reckoned with.

After a daring rescue, Raine and her friends are trapped in the Fault, searching for the Queen of Feathers amidst the shifting realities and warped perceptions of a world left to magical decay. They know that, back in their own world, Ovitus is growing in both strength and foolish ambition, his ego an easy weapon for an ancient foe to wield.

McDonald manages to hit the ground running with this book: Raine, Sanvaunt and Esher are in the thick of a beautiful surrealist world, threatened on every side, and drawn together by hope and necessity as much as Raine tries to damn herself by driving them apart. Raine herself continues to be quite a frustrating and self-sabotaging character, but is balanced out by her friends, and by a few new characters from the Fault itself. The dual narrative, showing events both in the Fault and, sporadically, back in the main world drives the pace along well, and gives a well-rounded conclusion to the Redwinter Chronicles.

Witch Queen of Redwinter is the finale in Ed McDonald's Redwinter trilogy. And it has a looot to wrap up, given that the last instalment saw the start of the end of the world, and saw our heroine flung into an entirely different level of reality, whilst her ex-friend, now nemesis started the apocalypse, and her two best friends, both of whom she carrying a torch for, are less than pleased with her for some rather shoddy behaviour. So...lots to do. Does the story pull it off? Well, I think so. I had a good time with this one, and particularly enjoyed that even three books in, it was capable of surprising me. I think, on balance, that the series delivers on its promise, and this final novel sticks the landing pretty well to get us there.

Which brings us to Raine. The protagonist of the series, now wrapped up in seven shades of trauma. She's been betrayed, sacrificed friends, seen other friends murdered. She's fought demons from out of time and space, and dealt with the fact that some of her own magic is both deeply unpleasant, and would see her put to death if anyone knew about it. Raine has, honestly, had a bit of a time of it. Equally, that's shaped her, often not for the better. She can be cold and hard and lethal, uncaring and closed off, while at the same time yearning for some humanity, compassion and friendship. The Raine we have here is almost two people. One who thinks they need to do "what must be done", be it mass murder, using people like tools, or, you know, more discriminate, artisanal murder. That Raine is desperate to be an island alone, pushing her friends and connections aside in order to stop them from stopping her. On the other hand there's the Raine who knows that she needs those friends in order to be a person, in order to do anything worth a damn, in order to bring some humanity to being, you know, a necromantic magic user who can rip your soul out of your body and use it as a doormat. The tension between these two halves is a struggle for her, and it's hard not to empathise - though she's more able to realise her own agency here, Raine is still a creature of her past, of old hurts and old loves casting shadows from the past into the now. Her journey toward catharsis, toward recognising and absolving her own pain (whilst coincidentally causing her enemies to explode) has been a joy, and, well, a pain, and seeing it play out, seeing the shape that Raine pulls herself and the world into, in the end, is very much worth it.

Speaking of the world. We get to see all kinds of fun places this go around. Mostly notably the Fault, a weird not-reality filled with murderous undead, strange beasts, and shattered ruins from elsewhere and elsewhen. There's a crawling, sterile dread here, a sense that the other shoe is always about to drop, a sense that just existing in this space is inimical, is draining vitality and love and life from everything inside it, which either dies or turns homicidal as a result. Those of you who've read McDonald's other series, Blackwing may see some similarities here, in the eerie wasteland that is essentially a misery to get through. Still, the journey gives Raine time to try and deal with her baggage, and to work on her relationships with her friends, whom she absolutely definitely isn't in love with. And we also get to see more of the environs around Redwinter and the north, a place filled with peat glens and deep lochs, where all sorts of monsters and ancient legends lurk in the mist, ready to fuck up Raine's day - or those of her enemies, they aren't that picky.

Speaking of Raine's enemies - oh, they really are a bunch of small minded, awful people who just can't stop trying to make the universe all about their wants and needs, as opposed to just letting it be. Ovitus, in particular, returning for another round of being a terrible person, just has so much main-character syndrome it's untrue. And I am here to tell you that the story delivers on Raine's efforts to both save the world and get revenge. It has towering monsters. It has bloody, kinetic, occasionally unpleasantly graphic battles that don't flinch away from the cost, and show how glory is always soaked in blood. It has romance and found families, and the kind of raw emotion that makes your heart ache. And it wraps the whole story up with a denouement that left everything feeling, if not settled, then, well, done. The story delivers on tying up all the loose ends, on making us care, and on giving us a tale that puts your heart in your mouth and lets you sob and cheer in equal measure.

Anyway, it was a good time, and well worth the read!

Wow, this book was a major disappointment. I’d found there were a few issues with the previous two books but I had enjoyed them overall. Witch Queen of Redwinter was not a good book.

At the end of the previous book Raine, Esher and Sanvaunt ended up in the Fault and this book picks up with them trying to find their way out. This wouldn’t have been an issue but the Fault scenes never end. There’s a whole storyline taking place in the real world that we only really get glimpses of. As a result, the book feels very disjointed and the plot doesn’t actually seem to be there. Years go by while Raine is in the Fault and we barely get to see any of it.

The characters seem to flounder. Ovitus is supposed to be this great threat but you barely see him. Esher and Sanvaunt don’t progress as characters beyond their relationship with Raine. I’m glad I never put any investment into Esher, because she was always a waste of a character, but I’m very disappointed with Sanvaunt. I really liked him in the first two books. Raine gets the most development but it’s mostly not that great. She spends far too long in a YA funk, being in love but not willing to actually do anything about it because she’s convinced she’s broken.

And what the hell was that thing with Mathilde. Two and a half books of Raine contemplating being in love with Esher and Sanvaunt only for the book to up end all of that and we get a bad epilogue between Raine and Mathilde. A character that I forgot had existed.

Witch Queen of Redwinter was a very disappointing end to the series. What should have been an epic story fizzled out until I just didn’t care anymore. The only upside is that McDonald is a good writer, it’s just the story wasn’t there.

Oh my gosh! What a brilliant conclusion to this series.
Raine and her two companions have been carried into The Fault, a kind of underworld inhabited by half dead humans and monsters. They are trying to find The Queen of Feathers as Raine is convinced that she can help them return to the real world and defeat the usurper. As they travel through the fault, they learn more about how it’s not only their own country that is at stake but the whole world as all the five crowns that were keeping the world safe have fallen or been lost.
Helpfully, there is a brief synopsis of what has happened in the two previous books for those, like me, who might not remember the earlier events as clearly as we would like. This was really useful and it was also helpful in the early chapters that Raine spent some time going over the events that led the three of them into their present situation. This never felt like info dumping but seemed to arise naturally over the course of the story.
Ed McDonald’s world building is absolutely superb. The depiction of the fault and its inhabitants is so realistic that I was constantly wondering what was going to creep out of a tunnel next. The castle that was created and maintained by Maldouen was a great part of this and the luxury provided a brilliant contrast with the greyness of the rest of the Fault. I loved the villa too where Elspeth created blankets and hot water and thought this was a lovely illustration of her character. The descriptions of much of the fault were stunning but I never felt that it was overwhelming the story.
Part of the way through, the story split into two parts and we were able to see how events were happening in Harren as well as in the world of the Fault. The initial splitting of story lines was a bit of a jolt but it was fascinating seeing how this aspect of the story played out.
More so than in the previous two novels, the character of Raine really stands out. This book is really all about her and her growing control of her Sarathi powers. She is now nineteen but has seen and done so much that she appears much older. Then you get scenes where she is battling her jealousy of the growing closeness between Sanvaunt and Esher and you are reminded of how young she really is.
As the story is told purely from her point of view, we only see the other characters through her eyes which makes them less vivid in my opinion. I loved both Esher and Sanvaunt but they only exist for us in the ways that they affect Raine so we didn’t really get anything of their inner feelings. In some ways, they felt a bit like companions on an Arthurian quest, a bit mythic rather than real. It’s only a minor niggle though as Raine’s character carried me through the whole book.
The pacing of the book varies quite a bit. The first part where the three of them are trapped in the Fault is quite slow moving but once the story line splits, the pace picks up and the final quarter of the book races towards a completely satisfying conclusion which I definitely didn’t see coming. I loved how everything came together at the end even if I was a bit sad about the fate of some of the characters. Ed McDonald did a fantastic job of bringing all of the different threads of this world together in an ending that was blood soaked but also magical.
This was a brilliant finale to a great fantasy trilogy and I am very grateful to the publishers and Net Galley for allowing me to read this ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Wow. This is a great series finale to the three books. I'll be honest here and say I wasn't particularly looking forward to it as I had really struggled with book 2, however the beauty of this book is that the stage had been set and everything was primed for an awesome finale. You had Raine and her two companions in the fault and then the witch queen in the real world. Perfectly set up. The book really shows you the good and and bad from both sides and even in Raine and how she struggles with her different sides and the best bit is it shows how love between three people can make a difference and it doesn't shy away from LGBT issues and love and indeed has a little dig at the church. Excellent work.

Without giving away too much you need to read the book and discover if Riane stays evil he she turns good, does she find the feather queen, does the one half get her power back.. or does she in fact destroy the world or save it.

So yeah go read this book it's wonderful and lots of excellent battle scenes and the magic system is very unique.

Absolutely fantastic end to the series.
McDonald writes a brilliant mix of action, romance and heartfelt scenes.

A brilliant thrill ride of a sequel to a powerhouse of an outstanding Books One and Two. I loved every moment of this and can't wait to see what this author next.

This was a really solid ending to what has been a fantastic trilogy. McDonald is a very talented writer and I'm excited to see what he does next.