This book was all I had hoped and expected it would be, after reading the three previous volumes. There was plenty of action and lots of character development; anticipation kept me on the edge of my seat and I couldn't put this book away. (I had to, of course - life goes on, with things like working and sleeping, but I would have finished QUEEN OF SHADOWS in a single breath if I could have.) Relationships between our favourite characters evolved and new characters were introduced. 
 There are only two "bad" things I could say about this book. One is the fact that (view spoiler)[ Rowan and Aelin do end up together, which I had hoped wouldn't happen. It was written in such a way that I did not mind so much, but I would have liked Aelin to simply have a close friendship with a male she is not related to without either of them falling in love with the other. For someone who has been through so much in her life and who has had her heart broken so thoroughly, she does seem to go around falling for men a lot. (hide spoiler)] The other is the fact that the fifth and sixth book are not out yet and I am dying to read more and to know how this series ends. 
 I applaud you, Sarah J. Maas. You managed to make me lose myself in a story again - not just in a single book, but in a whole series of them - just when I had finished a different wonderful series and decided that whichever series I next started reading would probably not live up to that one. Boy, was I wrong.