This series continues to captivate my boy through our bedtime readings. When we started, we had no idea how serialized the story would be. Even after the banger cliffhanger of book 2, I couldn't have predicted that so much would be unresolved by the end of this one. This is not a complaint, just noting the evolution of my understanding of this series.

There's a lot of heavy material in this one, handled appropriately for the intended readership. At least, as appropriately as one can make crippling drug addiction, near drownings, severe beatings, the very lightly and cautiously implied threat of sexual assault, and slavery.

The story is split in two parts, told through alternating chapters. One set follows Will and Evanlyn after they were kidnapped away from Araluen by Skandians at the end of the prior book. The other follows Halt and others as he faces the loss of Will and sets out to recover him, with plenty of major events complicating that goal.

We've moved directly onto the next book. Will there be a potential stopping point, or will the next half dozen books continue one prolonged adventure? 

This one was definitely missing the light-hearted back-and-forty that I loved soo much in the first two books. Darker tone and some darker parts than previously seen.

 This is possibly the only Ranger's Apprentice book that I've rated below 5 stars, but I promise there is a reason for this. When I first read this (around the age of 9, so a little below the target age), I hated it. Compared to the excitement that I'd grown to expect from the series, this book was fairly uneventful, and what action there was was split across two different plot lines.

I enjoyed it more upon rereading (this time at 18, which is significantly over the target age), which has led me to identify what I believe to be the route of this book's problem: a book about the horrors of slavery and drug addiction isn't really great for a middle grade/younger YA audience. These are topics that maybe should be introduced around this age, but this book went very all-in on it whilst trying to maintain a middle grade tone and it just didn't work. The result was that as a 9-year-old I was bored and as an 18-year-old I felt it lacked depth (not that it should have been aiming for an adult audience while the rest of the series is for kids). Despite this, I think Flanagan dealt with the situation he put himself in with the synopsis of this book surprisingly well and the Halt & Horace adventures were great to read, as always, and helped with the worldbuilding of the series as a whole. 

I’m still loving the series but this book has been my least favourite so far. Only because it was so dark and sad. But the character development was really good. 

Hoping things look up in the next one!