#the empire of gold

It took me a while to get through the nearly 800 pages of The Empire of Gold. I had forgotten so much of what happened in Kingdom of Copper. I was also just generally not a fan of the love triangle and was really hoping to see Nahri excel on her own. I still think Nahri from City of Brass was my favorites—scrappy, sarcastic, stands-on-her own Nahri.

The first 30-40% (I’m reading on a Kindle) focus on character and emotional development much of which is driven Nahli and Ali’s growing romance. I struggled with this the most because after rereading the ending of Kingdom of Copper I was hoping for more tension and more action. In contrast Dara’s dark, grim chapters were a bit more of what I was anticipating. It felt a bit disorienting to switch but Chakraborty has always been fantastic at building that slow tension and culminating in an explosion of change. The prose and world building was as beautiful as the previous books in the series and will not disappoint.

I think the conclusion really made it for me. So many trilogies fall into trap of having too many loose ends and try to solve them all at once. I loved Dara’s ending. I teared up at their parting words:

“ I would do it again, Dara. I would take your hand a thousand times over.”

This bittersweet moment choked me up for two reasons. Dara is finally able to chose a path for himself and gain redemption after millennia. Their love is still there but has changed. This was so much more realistic than a “they lived happily ever after”. There was just no world where Dara and Nahri could be together. And while I still don’t love Ali and Nahri, I wanted happiness and family for our little thief too.

4 stars for the epic conclusion to one of my favorite trilogies of all time.

I received a digital ARC courtesy of Edelweiss and the publisher in exchange for an honest review. Thank you!

xx

Susan