However, it didn't, so that has made me look back on the story with a renewed cynicism. I liked the book, don't get me wrong, there were a lot of improvements on The Iron King and The Iron Daughter.
The characters were definitely strong, Ash and Puck really came into their own and it was nice that they became integrated into the story as a pair, rather than individually. I enjoyed their relationship developing again just as much as I did watching Meghan and Ash becoming more of a couple.
Thinking back though, the thing that I wasn't convinced about was the actual story. There were a lot of moments where I thought 'Hmm, okay. Even in a faerie novel, I don't believe this...'.
Example number 1, Meghan has like a week of training with Ash and suddenly she's a fighter.
Example number 2, when she runs into battle on the horses and she says she's not scared. Are you kidding me? A 17 year old who's still new to the whole faerie thing and still hasn't mastered her powers is not scared of running into a war with three different races? Yeah right.
(POTENTIAL SPOILER) Example number 3, both Ash and Grim have said to Meghan that she needs to learnt to use both Summer and Iron magic together, but she says she can't do it. Then Machina tells her and she's like 'sure thing boss!' and hey presto, she's super faerie.
I know I sound ranty but I was really looking forward to this after The Iron Daughter, and while I don't think it was any worse, I definitely wouldn't say it was better. I did enjoy it though, just one or two niggles.
And the ending! Oh god the ending! I'm not usually a fan of novellas or stories for other perspectives but I'm going to have to read The Iron Knight just to get Ash out of my system I think. I gave The Iron Daughter a 4.5/5 but I think I'll drop this one to a 4/5.
