Sorcerers, werewolves, vampires… And now the Fae. We already had hints of it from the previous books, particularly in the guise of Lea–Harry’s literal Fairy Godmother.

Overall, it’s a very cool bit of worldbuilding. The Fae aren’t particularly uncommon in Urban Fantasy and I really like the Dresden Files version thereof. They’ve even gotten to the point where they act as background knowledge when reading other series. If something isn’t mentioned, I’ll fall back to the Dresden Files as ground truth. It’s just that solid.

Another nice bit is to finally see the White Council that we’ve heard about for several books. They’re more or less what I imagined they would be in this world. A whole pile of different people and cultures brought together by a shared magic. And just like any other large group of people, there is politics.

Of course Dresden ends up smack dab between the two.

The plot is neat, with a few twists and a good number of players muddying the waters. It’s interesting to see how even beings as elemental and unchanging as Fae can be twisted against themselves.

Cool scenes:

Dresden and Murphy fighting a giant plant monster at a Home Depot equivalent.

Meeting the crazy powerful (crazy and powerful) Fairy Mothers, the eldest of the queens.

That final battle in the sky.

The scope of the world keeps growing, revealing more and more of the things that go bump in the night (and that could tear Dresden limb from limb without breaking a sweat).

Also, Dresden finally told Murphy just about everything. About freaking time.