Red-Haired Ash Reads

It’s been months since Susan left and Harry is a depressed mess. He has been running himself ragged trying to find a way to help her and neglecting to do his job. But when the queen of the Winter Faeries manipulates him into accepting a murder case, he finds himself racing to stop a war between the Summer and Winter courts. 

While Dresden is still a loner in a way, in this one we really see him lean on his friends and accept the help offered. He works with werewolves, pixies, Karrin, and fae to uncover who is behind this murder and upheaval in the fae courts. After all the reveals in the previous book about Harry’s godmother, it was good to learn more about the fae courts. 

The fae courts were very interesting and I enjoyed meeting the Ladies and their courts. They were always scheming to trap people, like the fae do, and it was interesting seeing how Harry dealt with all the schemes. I am very curious to see how the events in this book will impact Harry’s relationship with the fae in the future. My one complaint with the fae though involves his godmother. She was such an evil person in the previous book but in this one it seemed like she did a 180 because she was actually helping Harry.  It was weird and I didn’t love it. 

In this one Harry has a person from his past reappear. It was an interesting surprise but I was surprised by how quickly Harry trusted them considering they betrayed him in the past. And he just keeps trusting them and it leads to more betrayal. I kinda wanted to hit Harry and be like learn from the past stupid. 

One major issue with this book was with the introduction of a wizard from the White Council named Listens to Wind. Instead of using this wizards name, Harry and another wizard give him a racist white name. It wasn’t cool at all and the one time Harry used his correct name, but the other wizard corrected him to the racist name. It was just very disappointing, especially since right after Harry is getting onto the wizards actions in the history of the genocide of natives and the Holocaust. 

Overall, this was a decent addition to the series. I like seeing more of this world and the paranormals that inhabit it. I also enjoyed that Dresden is learning to lean more on others and not do everything on his own. But my one complaint is that the vampire angle kind of got forgotten in this one even though it was mentioned quite a few times in the beginning. 

TW: war theme; racism; violence, death, blood;

---

Goodreads | The StoryGraph | Amazon

---

Previous books and reviews for the series:

#0.5 Restoration of Faith
#1. Storm Front
#2.  Fool Moon
#3. Grave Peril