RISE OF INK AND SMOKE - Pam Godwin

4.5 stars

Finally! Wolf gets his happy ending; a story. When I say we've been WAITING for this update since the Frozen Fate trilogy wrapped last year...

Wolfson Strakh has been through hell—literally.

He grew up in the Arctic Circle, tortured and tormented by a demon in human form. Alongside his brothers, he grew warped under conditions that very few people could survive.

But survive he did. Until he didn't, and he plunged into the icy waters below.

His story didn't end then. He then spent time with another twisted demon, enduring more pain and making an unthinkable devil's bargain to survive once more.

So when Wolf finally sees the sun, he deserves his happy ending. Rise of Ink and Smoke is that happy ending.

That happy ending comes from an unexpected—yet very Wolf—place. A runaway, blue-haired bride, running with dirty skirts and shotgun through the Sitka, Alaska, streets in pursuit of her stepbrother.

It's something out of a twisted fairytale. (And Wolf loves those most of all.)

Dove and Jag are stepsiblings who have also survived against all expectations—even each other. And now that they've entered Wolf's orbit, the trio have a journey ahead of them...

Y'all. Rise of Ink and Smoke was a trip in the best possible way. Sweeter than I expected it to be—yes, "sweet" is NEVER a word I thought I'd associate with the Frozen Fate universe, but here we are—and healing in a way we all needed it to be.

Wolf's journey toward healing was non-traditional. How could it be anything but? His problems and past were so singular that I was concerned about this novel and how any romance for Wolf would adequately treat him with care, healing, and also retain that Pam Godwin-level of angsty drama and pain that we've come to expect.

This nailed it, folks. It handled Wolf's romance arc perfectly.

Dove and Jag's addition to the Strakh family knot was perfect. Dove was fiery yet soft, able to provide space for Wolf's journey while also enduring one of her own. Jag's hardened, bloodthirsty form of protection-as-love was very much in line with the Strakh men of the previous trilogy, but this time done in a computer hacker font that was very fun to read.

If I had to pick a negative—which I don't, but sometimes it's worth pointing to the bits we didn't love the most--I would have to admit that this story was almost too soft and too quickly fixed for the Frozen Fate universe. Maybe I'm the problem there, honestly, because while this story healed a lot of pieces for the characters it did make me feel like we we closing up the wounds too quickly for all three of our tortured leads. I eventually just let it go out of sheer happiness that they were finding their happy, but after the long-drawn, realistically paced arc of Frankie's story I thought this was one quite fast. (As fast as 700+ pages can feel, anyway!)

Definitely pick this one up ASAP if you're read the Frozen Fate trilogy. It's the perfect ending to our characters, and witnessing Frankie & Co's happy ending in practice was also perfection.

Thank you to the author for my copy in exchange for an honest review.