In this third novel of musket and magic in Chris Evans’s Iron Elves saga, Konowa’s ultimate journey is fraught with escalating danger. A vast, black forest finds a new source of dark power, spawning creatures even more monstrous than the blood trees from which they evolve. The maniacally unstable former emissary of the Shadow Monarch hungers for revenge, leading an army of ravenous beasts bent on utterly destroying the Iron Elves. A reluctant hero, Private Alwyn Renwar, struggles to maintain his connection to this world and that of the loyalty of the shades of the dead. And in a maze of underground tunnels, Visyna Tekoy, whom Konowa counts among those he has loved and lost, fights for her life against the very elves he so desperately wants to find.

Iron Elves V3 was probably not on my read list. The only Chris Evans I knew was in Captain Hunk vs Emo Iron Man in Civil War.

The green death was instinctively terrifying, but it was more than seeing one of their own kind eaten alive by it. Buried deep in their primal core lay a memory that any other sentient creature would have understood to be a nightmare. They couldn’t fight the green death, only flee from it, and that went against their very nature.

The book is gorgeous, filled with elves and dwarves and every Lord of the Rings fan will testify that the bonds between man and dwarf are legendary.

For me, I had an issue with the fact that (yet again) I have picked up a story in the middle and I haven’t read book 1 and 2. As a standalone book, it does not fare well. The names are all fantasy- Konowa/Visnya,  Ymit and Alwyn. After a while I think the author just threw some letter dice and made up names.

Konowa continued. “His Majesty has asked me to convey his best wishes in the coming hours and knows you will do your best. He is currently deep in study, pouring over the many documents and artifacts that were recovered from the library in hopes of finding ways to defeat the Shadow Monarch and break the oath. While this is unlikely,” he quickly added, knowing it was the best lie he had to offer, “there is always hope. And cunning.”

The characters are OK but without the 1&2 book, they felt a bit flat. I think I’ll reread once I’ve started from the proper start. In the mean-time DNF