Crown of Crystal Flame by C.L. Wilson
With Crown of Crystal Flame, C.L. Wilson concludes her epic Tairen Soul quintet. The series has always walked the line between romance and epic fantasy. In the later books, however, with the connection between Rain and Ellysetta mostly established (other than that pesky incomplete soul-bond issue), the balance has shifted more toward fantasy as the war with the Eld Mages moves to the forefront.
In this installment, the Fey and their Elven and Celierian allies make their last stand against the Mages. Meanwhile, the insurrection brewing within Vadim Maur’s stronghold comes to a head as well. The good guys are vastly outnumbered and the Mages have terrible powers at their disposal. Yet Rain, Ellie and friends refuse to give up hope, and help from an unexpected quarter may just be enough to turn the tide.
I advise against starting Tairen Soul with Crown of Crystal Flame. The characters and their struggles will be more meaningful to you once you’ve followed them through the first four books, and the plot will make more sense if you’ve read the buildup. But have no fear of an endless series. Crown of Crystal Flame is an actual, honest-to-goodness ending, tying up all the threads Wilson has introduced.
With its focus on the war, it’s the most violent book of the five. Ellie and Rain undergo unimaginable suffering on their way to the climactic scene, and some beloved characters don’t make it. The darkness is not total, however. There are victories along the way, and beautiful moments of romance (both joyous and bittersweet). My favorite scene involves a minor character finally learning how much another character loved them. Reader, I bawled. I also enjoyed the developments regarding the dahl’reisen, and the rediscovered lore about Azrahn and its role in the history of the Fey.
Wilson’s influences bleed through the story in a few places. This is most evident in a scene reminiscent of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Isengard (particularly Peter Jackson’s interpretation thereof), and in a Fey proverb that sounds a lot like one I remember from Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series.
On the whole, however, Crown of Crystal Flame satisfies, giving readers the conclusion they’ve been waiting for. Now that the series is finished, I can enthusiastically recommend it to fans of romantic fantasy.
Tairen Soul — (2007-2010) Romantic fantasy. Publisher: Long ago, in the magical holocaust known as the Mage Wars, the immortal Fey and their allies fought to defeat the grasping evil of the Elden Mages and their dark-gifted supporters. During those wars, in a fit of grief-induced madness caused by the death of his mate, Fey shapeshifter Rain Tairen Soul nearly destroyed the world in a blaze of tairen fire. Now, a thousand years later, the fierce Fey king must fight to save his race from the brink of extinction and once again stop the evil rising in the homeland of his enemies, the Eld. The key to his success lies in the mortal city of Celieria, where the Mage Wars began, and with a young woman whose soul sings to him in ways no woman’s ever has, whose presence reawakens the primal fury of the tairen within his soul, and whose vast, untapped power can either save or destroy him and his people.
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