Parents' Guide to The Dryad Storm: The Black Witch Chronicles, Book 5

While this finale has a hyper-relevant message about the importance of caring for the environment, it's watered down with far too many characters, magics, and warring peoples. Readers who enjoy character-driven stories and have enjoyed the rest of the series will probably dig right in, though even the biggest fan may still forget who's aligned with whom and what it means to be part Deathkin Fae and part Water Fae and other magical alignment details. Those looking for more plot have to sift through oodles of minor character storylines to find it. Yes, Vogul is still the enemy, and he pops up here and there to say horrible things about Elloren and all non-Mages, but he spends much of the book waiting around for late-fall when the Dryads are too weak to hold the forest shield against him. Even his creepy ally Fallon Bane knows he's stalling for no good reason.

Author Laurie Forest seems to be stalling Vogul to fit more and more couples' stories into The Dryad Storm. Of course Elloren and Yvan's rocky and intense romance is important. And the escape of a Mage named Gwynnifer with a Mage spy named Mavrik shows readers just how militant Gardneria has become. But having dozens of pages of them grappling with their attraction to each other really slows things down. And the pattern persists throughout, with Tierney and Viger, and Tierney and Or'myr (Tierney is conflicted), and Tristan and Voth, and Gareth and Marina, and others. While it's a nice break from thinking about the impending doom of the entire planet, it can also have the opposite effect. Readers are in an anxious ash-strewn limbo for 700-plus pages—no amount of smooching will totally make that stress go away. It's time to save Erthia already so that we can all get back to saving our own fragile planet.