At some point, every game has to end.

There must be a winner, and there must be a loser.

There must be victory at all costs.

Behind the cameras, something is shifting. The script is off, and their masks are slipping. The only thing more dangerous than the truth is what they’ll do to keep it hidden, but the walls are closing in and the spotlight is burning brighter than ever. For Isobel and the Alphas, there is nowhere left to hide.

The time for moves and countermoves has come to an end.

The game, finally, has come to an end.

Beware, pretty Icons.

Ironside Academy has terminated the feed.

Hmmm. I have mixed feelings about this book and a few of the plot points.

The bond between Isobel and the 10 alphas was a strong plot point for the series but from the whole narration of the six book I’m led to believe that it was never actually completed which brings me to the point of, why was it inluded in the first place?

I don’t like unfinished or forgotten plot points and I always assumed that the completion of the bond would be something that would be eventually tackled, so having it so ambiguously vague in this last book irked me a lot.

Here’s the thing about this series, it was building to something. There was all the mystery and dark secrets of the Stone Dahlia. There were all the forbidden gifts of the alphas. There was all the mistreatment in the settlements. It was a lot and it definitly kept me guessing while reading. In the fifth book we get the new angle of the group wanting to ‘take down the organisation from the inside’ and that seemed like a good narrative and direction for the series to go in but as I have no finished the final book in the series, it seemed lackluster.

A lot of things have been left unsaid and not even the epilogue could answer my questions.

SPOILERS IF YOU HAVEN’T READ THE SERIES BELOW.

An underlying theme has been the gods of the gifted and which one had gifted Isobel and put the bond into motion. This narrative comepletely fizzled out and seemed to get less important as the series went on.

Isobel’s artifact was such an important plot point in books three and four but it wasn’t even mentioned in book six and seemed to disappear entirely.

The human group that were brought in in either book 4 or 5 (I can’t quite remember) disappeared completely and so did the promising plot they had.

Theo and Moses ferality disappeared completely when it was something they deeply struggled with in the earlier books.

Braun Carter, Isobel’s dad went from being a complete narcissistic, evil to the point of no return character only to have a 180 change and become morally grey.

The place the group escaped to in this book was too easy.

Callum Rowe, the mastermind behind everything was taken down too easily.

END OF SPOILERS

It was such a pity because the previous five books in this series were top 5 star reads for me and I suppose I was expecting too much from this book so it was inevitable that it would fall short. What was given to the reader wasn’t enough to cover all the plot points that were working through this series and it was almost like the characters and the plot got stuck behind a brick wall and didn’t really know how to get passed it.

The final climax didn’t sit well with me either; it happened too quickly and didn’t seem particularly thought through. It reminded me of when I was in school doing creative writing, when the teacher called “5 minutes” and you had to wrap up the story quickly. I think also because the series did such a good job at approaching many of the previous plot points in such detail, what happened in this book stood out as more lacking as a result.

We do get a HEA with bonus scenes. Personally, from the individual character growth through the series, the HEA wasn’t that believable to me because I felt it didn’t align with the characters themselves. It felt more like an easy fix ending than anything else. I almost feel like all the big ‘wowing’ plot point were resolved in earlier books and so, when it came to this last installment there really wasn’t a whole lot lets to wrap up.

It’s perspective also, another reader might totally fall in love with this last book, I just felt that it was a beige answer. It didn’t give me any strong positive or negative emotion. I just sort of read the last pages and thought, ‘well, that’s that.’

If I ignore this book, my rating for the series would be 10/10. But including this book, my rating for the series is 7/10.