Review by Booklist Review
The Droods are a holier-than-thou family that protects the world from horrors that make our worst nightmares look tame, utterly convinced that everything they do is for the greater good. The Nightside is a shadow realm in which many of those horrors pop in for a drink. Anything goes in the Nightside, with parties and fights (sometimes overlapping) that range from magic to time travel to the aptly named Street of the Gods. Nightside's boundaries are supposed to be immutable, despite constant expansion and rearrangement within the magical realm. Then the boundaries suddenly change in the real world, causing panic at Drood Hall at the prospect of the Nightside infringing upon the areas they protect. The Drood family opts to invade the Nightside, crashing Green's Secret Histories world into his Nightside world in a bloody battle of rapidly diminishing moral authority versus an outright will to live freely. Long-time Green fans will be disappointed to learn that this is the last book planned for the two series (after Moonbreaker, 2017) but will be glad they go out with a bang.--Moritz, Frances Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
In this epic conclusion to two long-running series, the Secret History books (following 2017's Moonbreaker) and the Nightside books (2015's The Big Game), Green pits the Drood family-the secret guardians of humankind-against the denizens of the Nightside-London's dark heart where anything is possible. Previous Secret History entries were playful nods to James Bond with an urban fantasy twist, but this adventure throws away the rule book in favor of all-out war. Eddie Drood and his wild witch companion, Molly Metcalf, face off against the Nightside's protectors, John Taylor and Shotgun Suzie. Forces on both sides rack up an impressive body count of established characters and newcomers alike, including more than a few fan favorites, with everything lovingly described in Green's over-the-top, grandiose, freewheeling style: "The street was full of smoke and fire, the sound of crashing vehicles and the screams of the wounded and the dying." With nods to his other urban fantasy works, such as Ghost Finders and Shadows Fall, Green tosses in everything including the kitchen sink in one final apocalyptic farewell. This is a worthwhile if not always happy ending for a sprawling cast of colorful characters, and readers will be curious to see where Green goes next. Agent: Joshua A. Bilmes, JABberwocky Literary. (June) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review
This finaleas in final, last, ultimate, never-to-be-anotherwraps up two of Green's popular and successful fantasy series, the Secret Histories (Moonbreaker, 2017, etc.) and the Nightside (The Bride Wore Black Leather, 2012, etc.).Neither series needs much introduction. The Secret Histories are all about the Droods (less a family than a small nation), whose self-appointed mission is to keep reality safe from marauding supernatural creatures; the Nightside (where it's always 3 a.m. and pretty much anything goesthe weirder and more violent the better) doesn't want to control anything, especially itself. For centuries, solemn Pacts and Agreements have kept the Nightside unchanging and the Droods out. But now, impossibly, the Nightside's boundaries have changed, and something very, very scary is approachingso scary that even the gods have abandoned the place. Does the prospect of a showdown between hordes of control-freak Droods in impenetrable armor and the immovable, laissez-faire, monster-filled Nightside appeal? Of course it does, and luckily Green's eager to tell us all about it. What's really going on, and why? Nobody knows, least of all John Taylor, the man known as Walker (he runs the Nightside), or the Nightside's mysterious Authorities. The Drood Matriarch, meanwhile, orders shamus Eddie Drood and his lover/sidekick, badass witch Molly Metcalf, to investigate while secretly preparing for war, if necessary to the deathof the Nightside, that is; the Droods always win. Before the grand face-off, though, Green showcases, often hilariously, most if not all of the weird beings and doings you might have missed in the previous books.A splendid riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma, conveyed with trademark wisecracking humor, and carried out with maximum bloodshed and mayhem. In a word, irresistible. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
