The third installment in a trilogy is notoriously tricky. Can the third and final book in a series successfully wrap up all the outstanding plot points and narrative threads? Give every character a satisfying ending? (Or at least a comfortable stopping point?) Answer all the lore-related questions readers might have? Plenty of popular book series have failed this last hurdle, leaving an unfortunate stain on a story that was otherwise great. And while the final instalment in Hannah Whitten’s Nighshade Crown trilogy, The Nightshade God, isn’t perfect, it more than sticks the landing when it comes to giving its characters the bonkers, chaotic, and thoroughly them ending that the series deserves.
Picking up almost immediately after the cliffhanger that closed the second book, a dethroned Lore is now a prisoner on the Burning Isles, a prison colony for traitors where she’s forced to do hard labor to secure the basics of survival. Bastian is king of Auverraine, but now fully controlled by the life god Apollius, who’s busy embracing his villain era, making deals with despots, undoing many of the reforms Bastian and Lore implemented, and just generally being a menacing jerk to all around him. As for Bastian himself, he experiences brief moments of lucidity and awareness as he tries to break free of the golden sea of his mental prison. Former Priest Exalted Gabe is now on the run in the neighboring kingdom of Caldien, with Presque Mort brothers Malcom and Michal, as well as both of Lore’s mothers in tow. And noblewoman Allie, now revealed as Bastian’s secret half-sister, remains in Dellaire, engaged to a former enemy of the kingdom and faking loyalty to the new regime even as she does her best to find a way to free Bastian from Apollius’s control. Things are complicated by the fact that it’s now not only Lore and Bastian who have ancient gods in their heads; Gabe, Malcolm, and Allie all have magical passengers of their own, with accompanying special abilities.
The group’s best chance to thwart Apollius’s plans for world domination involves restoring the mystical location known as the Fount, the location where the gods first claimed their power. There, they can use it to return all magic to its source and banish the gods once more. Conveniently, the three missing pieces of the Fount seem to be located in each of the disparate areas where the story’s main characters happen to be, so the race is on to track them down and reunite on the so-called Golden Mount, where the ritual must be completed.
Where the series’ middle installment, The Hemlock Queen, struggled a bit to balance its competing narrative priorities and character threads, The Nightshade God is much more propulsively paced. While big chunks of the novel do see our leads literally scattered across the world in separate subplots that prevent them from interacting as much as most of us (read: me) might like, there’s at least the sense that their stories are (finally) all pulling in the same direction. The deft way Whitten continues to use the ancient gods that have now taken up residence in their heads to reflect and subvert the story of Gabe, Lore, and Bastian’s relationship is impressive. It’s also a relief to report that, with the mystery of the gods’ existence out in the open, we’re no longer kept at such a narrative distance from our three leads, and each gets the desperately needed interiority that the second book lacked.
Lore remains a capable and likeable heroine, though it’s unfortunate that she spends so much of this book on her own, save for a brief team-up with a fairly unexpected partner. The addition of Alie as a POV voice is delightful, and the flashbacks featuring additional history between Apollius, Nyxara, and the other gods add fascinating layers to the series’ world-building and deeper lore.
But what most people will likely be talking about is the trilogy’s ending, which manages to feature a blockbuster face-off for the future of the world, a bittersweet sacrifice, and a satisfying resolution to the series’ central love triangle that takes the sort of genuine risks that one has to hope a great many people in this genre space are paying attention to. It likely won’t work for anyone, but it’s hard to stress how remarkable it is that Whitten manages to pull this off in a way that feels…well, honestly like the only way the book could have ended. That said, there’s a certain rushed vibe to some of the later reveals that reflects some of the pacing issues this book (and the latter half of this trilogy) has suffered from, and it’s hard not to wish we got to spend a bit more time in the lead-up to some of these big moments.
At the end of the day, however, Whitten’s Nightshade Crown trilogy remains one of the best examples of what a true romantasy title should be and do, carefully balancing the romance and fantasy elements of her works in a way that purposefully refuses to privilege one half of the genre over the other. Full of lush prose and morally complex, emotionally compromised characters, this is a story that wrestles with everything from faith and predestination to forgiveness, power, and the idea that if nothing we do matters, then all that matters is what we do. Yes, Whitten’s fictional world is harsh and indifferent, but it’s the people who inhabit it that can make all the difference. Love, in the end, in every variety, is the answer, and that is no small thing.
The Nightshade God is available now wherever books are sold.
Lacy Baugher Milas writes about Books and TV at Paste Magazine, but loves nerding out about all sorts of pop culture. You can find her on Twitter and Bluesky at @LacyMB
