Out of the three books, I would say this is the worst. I'm not saying it's bad, but the 'fairy politics' in it isn't interesting enough. I sort of had to find the will to read the rest about halfway through just because I assumed the series would be more romance based, but it seems that The Cruel Prince is the only one that really covered that. The ending was lackluster and also wasn't exciting. I would say this is a read if you like reading entire series. I would have happily stopped at The Cruel Prince if there were no cliffhangers that urged me to keep going.