The Beauty of Darkness (Remnant Chronicles, #3)

by Mary E Pearson

Lia has survived Venda—but so has a great evil bent on the destruction of Morrighan. And only Lia can stop it.

With war on the horizon, Lia has no choice but to assume her role as First Daughter, as soldier—as leader. While she struggles to reach Morrighan and warn them, she finds herself at cross-purposes with Rafe and suspicious of Kaden, who has hunted her down.

In this heart-stopping conclusion to the Remnant Chronicles trilogy, traitors must be rooted out, sacrifices must be made, and impossible odds must be overcome as the future of every kingdom hangs in the balance.

• ISBN10: 0805099255
• ISBN13: 9780805099256
• Publish Date: 2 August 2016
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 24 May 2022
• Imprint: Henry Holt & Company
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 688
• Language: English

Reviews

[natpatreads]

I thought the characters were really well written, and although they drove me insane in moments, they followed a character arc that made sense for them. I was also quite sucked into the plot and the world. In a series that drags for me, I can find that by the third book I am only reading to finish. This was not what went on with this book. (I actually had a 2 AM finish time cause I was so invested.)

The only part that I was annoyed with is that I found the pacing at the end was so rushed. I know that there was a lot of plot points to wrap up, but I would have almost preferred another 100 pages to have more detail then to wrap up in a way that felt rushed.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book and gave it 4 stars.

[alindstadtcorbeax]

Star Rating: —> 5 Stars

What an exhilarating, twisting, turning, AMAZING journey of a book & satisfying end of a series! Loved this so very much. This is a series that I know will remain close to my heart for a very, very long time.
I love finding series that happen to be “forgotten” YA gems!

This was wonderful, so a big thank you to everyone who recommended it!

I now can say that I wholeheartedly recommend this series as well.

[Vicki]

4.5 stars

I could not put this down! I wished I could've skipped work so I could have devoured this all in one sitting. The story has come a long way from the first book and was way more epic. Kingdoms at war, battles and fight scenes made this super fast paced. And Rafe/Lia....so good. At times I did just want to yell at the two of them, but the tension and stolen moments...aahhh so good. My only tiny hang up was the prophecy and historical texts. It was a bit too much for me and I found myself skimming those parts. Otherwise, an amazing ending to a beautiful trilogy. I've been on such a roll these last few books I'm almost scared to pick what to read next. I'm debating re-reading the first book now that I know who the Prince and Assassin are.

[Ashley]

Hmm.

While I did enjoy this book, it didn't quite go the direction I thought it would.

- The romance that I fell SO in love with in book #1 all but disappeared. The focus is 100% on politics/war. I don't necessarily mind that in a book, but I feel like the first book led me to believe this series was a romance. In the end, I'm not really sure I'd call it that.

- The religious part of the book really becomes front and center. It started out more like a prophecy but it really developed into a whole religion that became a huge part of the story. I'm just not a religious person so I don't particularly love reading about it.

- Whenever Lia made a speech it was so flowery... I really didn't like it. I thought it was cheesy. Example: "Brothers! Sisters! I am your queen! Daughter of your blood and sister of your heart!" It's like she spoke to them as if she was some kind of deity, which is funny because she talked about how she tried to move among the people in a very one-on-one way.

- I thought the end was a little silly. There's a huge battle, enormous armies, and then Lia just jumped up on a hill and.... asked them to stop.... so they did.... Okay. Also I couldn't believe she just left her kingdom and went on to rule Venda? Maybe I should have seen it coming but it felt SO ABRUPT! Like she didn't really tell anyone she was going to do this, then as soon as the fighting is over, "Okay guys I'm going to be queen of Venda. See ya!"

I actually stopped reading this book about halfway through for a whole week while I re-read a romance series instead.

I didn't hate this book but I'm disappointed that I didn't love it more. It didn't really grip me and the romance I loved so much in the first book was basically gone. *sigh*

[ellieroth]

so. fucking. good

[ross91]

Not gonna lie, I skim- read it.
So boring. I didn't care for the story nor the characters (except Kaden and Jeb).
The world building was the only thing that kept me interested and I was going to rate it 3 stars, but then the ending happened and... yeah, not a fan.

[cornerfolds]

Read more of my reviews at Cornerfolds.com!

The Beauty of Darkness is the long-awaited (okay, not that long, but it felt like forever) conclusion the The Remnant Chronicles, one of my favorite series of 2016 and easily one of my most anticipated reads of the year. But despite the fact that I preordered it and started it immediately, this book took me forever to read. Forever. In fact, I read half, put it down for months, and finally finished it via audiobook. You see, this book suffers from being twice as long as it needs to be, but more on that later.

This book picks up directly after the end of The Heart of Betrayal. Lia has escaped from Venda, barely, and must make her way home to Morrighan to warn them of Venda's plans. On the way, though, she finds herself disagreeing more and more with Rafe and eventually must decide which way to progress - in the direction her heart is leading her, or where Rafe wants her to go. It is during this never ending progression through the countryside that Lia and this book completely lost me.

I have so, so many problems with The Beauty of Darkness, not least of which is that Lia becomes a totally different person. She is incredibly rude and selfish and hurtful and has absolutely no concept of what it means to love another human. With one breath she insists that she loves Rafe and in the next she completely disregards him, his opinions, and his well-being. And while I understand that she is a "strong" woman who must do what she thinks is best, there are certain caveats that come with being in a committed relationship. You know, like not being a total bitch and taking your partner into consideration when making life-changing decisions. I absolutely could not stand Lia in this book and that is really unfortunate considering I loved her in the first two.

Kaden continued to be a decent character, at least. I thought his romantic arc, however forced, was cute enough and I kind of liked how it wrapped up. But Rafe... I think he's a good, strong character. I liked him. But I honestly could not understand why Rafe continued to care about Lia when it was obvious that he was not even on her priority list. Basically, the romance in this book was just extremely off and didn't live up to the rest of the series.

I've already mentioned that this book is slow, so let me expand upon that. This book is unbearably slow. I couldn't force myself to read it. A massive chunk of the almost 700 pages (seven hundred!!) is just Lia and Rafe or Lia and Kaden walking and talking and eating and sitting and literally nothing else. The entire trip could have been summed up in a chapter or two and The Beauty of Darkness would already have been so much better. I'm not sure what to say about the world building. This book explores the exact same locations as the first two, except you get to stay there for literally ever.

While I'm on the absolutely painful pacing of this book, I'd like to talk about the final battle. You know? The big one the entire series has been leading up to. Without getting too spoilery, it happens in the last 10% of the book and is over incredibly quickly thanks to some good 'ol deus ex machina. I have vowed not to ruin anything, but the way in which things resolve is so unbearably ridiculous I still am not over it.

Quite frankly, I'm mad. I will forever be bitter that I spent three books, close to 2,000 pages, on this series for it to end like this. The pacing was terrible, the romance was awful, and the magic did not even need to exist. So did I like anything about it? Well, the first few chapters were pretty good! They felt like the first two books in the series and made me excited to see what would happen. But all the issues I've already mentioned combined with a horribly open-ended conclusion throws The Remnant Chronicles right off my favorites list and into the trade pile.

Actual rating: 1.5 stars

[lisacee]

A satisfying conclusion to this series. There was excitement and romance. What more could I want?

[Chelsea]

For the most part I really enjoyed this book. It wasn't an epic conclusion like I was expecting but I was happy. I loved that we finally got to go back to Lia's hometown and confront all the drama there. It ended up being much better than I thought it was going to be thanks to a couple plot twists. I wasn't expecting the things that happened at the castle to happen! There was tons of betrayal and it was impossible to tell who you could trust! I also thought the mini siege scene was really cool and I loved seeing Lia take that leadership role.

I think Lia was easily the best character in this book. She really stepped up and started taking things really seriously. Not just herself but her people. She didn't care that they had all cast her aside because of some lies. All she cared about was saving everyone from the possible threat that was coming. She really showed us that you have to fight for the things you love. I was also really glad we were reunited with some characters from the first book! Everyone was coming together for this one big battle and I loved seeing the new and old characters working together.

Sadly, I was a little underwhelmed by this book. I really loved the first two books so this one had some fairly high hopes. I was expecting a crazy ending to this trilogy but I don't feel like I got it.

I was also really upset that Kaden was kind of only a secondary character in this book where in the first two he played big rolls. He was just cast off to the side except when Lia needed something, of course. Then he was right there beside her. We did learn a little more about his upbringing but it wasn't enough for me to forgive the author for not giving him a better roll in this book. Especially since he was a HUGE part of book two and I thought there was still some unresolved things there but I guess not.

This is a great series for fantasy lovers! There's a lot of plot twists and surprising elements to keep you on your toes! The books can seem really long (and they are) but it will be worth it in the end!

An great ending to a series full of mystery and intrigue. This author always knows how to keep us on our toes and keep us from putting this book down!

[tweetybugshouse]

This is the third in a very epic at least to me its epic fantasy series. This book is a monster at least compared to the normal one i been reading. At almost 700 pages it took me a full week to get through. Their a lot of emotions in this book, their a sly love triangle that we been dealing that is probably not as much of one as we feel it is, their deception and plot twists. The author has woven this fantastic story where your not really sure how all the characters are going to end up dead or alive. Also i very pleasently surprise about how some relationships ended up. It has a very satisfying conclusion that delighted me and really was hoping for as i read the last pages i was like no no no but it all came out just right.