A Conjuring of Light Collector's Edition A Novel

This left me speechless. It took me forever to actually finish this book, simply because I did not want the series to end. I've said it before, but this world is truly one of my favourite fantasy worlds ever created, and Schwab's magic system is unlike any others i've seen before. I was already in love with her characters since book 1, but this book really brought every single character and every storyline to a satisfying conclusion. Schwab does something daring with this book, that i actually would like more authors to do: Leave some questions unanswered. We simply do not get the backstory of some main characters, and I love it. At first i thought that to really understand what happened, we'd need to, but now by the end I realised that the story makes perfect sense without it. I love that she left us in the dark about some things, and that certain characters actually choose to be left in the dark. It's very different to all the other more popular books, where we only really get to "know" a character when we learn their backstory. Schwab just says "you already know who they are." The last few chapters had me sobbing. I kind of expected the ending, but it still was entirely different to how it ended, and so much better. While "A darker shade of magic" was wonderful, it was still very much a typical fantasy - "A Conjuring of Light" really shows Schwab's genius as a writer and brings a whole new level to her stories that leaves you thinking about the world and characters for a long time.

Of all the series' books, I enjoyed this one by far the most. In this last instalment of her fast-pacing trilogy, Schwab inserts so much more narrative detail and background information on already introduced characters as well as a rich variety of points of view that the third volume by far exceeds all expectations in comparison to the two previous parts. I was trhilled to finally read more about Holland's former life, his upbringing and the devastating blows of fate in his young adult life. Already in the first book, I suspected that there is much more to his character than what meets the eye. And - of course - Schwab is a genius of a narrator in how she first offers a small glimpse into Holland's mind, power and suffering, only to draw the reader in for more, more, more of this character and its heavily atmospheric presence throughout the whole series. I am absolutely looking forward to her new trilogy ("Threads of Power") which is set in this universe and picks up some time in the future after the now concluced "Darker Shades of Magic" trilogy.