Queen of Shadows by Sarah J Maas

This is basically the last book in the first trilogy of the series.

Everything that all the characters worked towards in the first two books come to a head in this book. All the chess piece moving that I complained about in the last book, check mate in this book. It could end here, and I would be satisfied, but the next trilogy of the books begins in the next book. And according to Maas' website, the series will end after book 6.

Celeana is back in Rifthold in this book to tie up all the loose ends from her life as Celeana.

1. She resolves her relationship with Choal. Chaol is still stupid and thickheaded, but he's coming to terms with that. He doggedly refuses to kill Dorian, and refuses to acknowledge the truth about his kingdom. SO thickheaded that he can't see how his second in the rebellion, Nesryn, is kinda in love with him. But that works for him in the end. 
2. She works with Arobynn to save Aedion from the dungeons. She still hates Arobynn, her former Master, but  knows him well enough to realize when she's being played. And she does fabulously in playing him as well. And the reunion with Aedion is wonderful. 
3. She destroys Arobynn. 

And that's just the first half of the book.

A couple surprises - Lysandra, Celeana's enemy for Sam's attention in the very first book (prequel), is actually an ally. A very cool ally with a unique skillset. And an amazing jewellery who does amazing things, almost deus ex machina like. And Rowan comes to Rifthold, following Lorcan, one of the fae cadre who comes here on the pretext of finding the wyrdkeys to prevent Maeve from destroying the world. You don't really know why Lorcan is there because you can't trust anything he says... but he's very conveniently there for Celeana to manipulate into doing a couple things for her, that she can't fix on her own without magic.

After she destroys Arobynn, she stops using Celeana as her name. She fully takes on the mantle of Aelin and works with Chaol, Aedion, Rowan and Lysandra to destroy the glass castle and free magic, kill the king and save Dorian.

Interspersed throughout the book are a couple chapters from Dorian's point of view, and you see how awful it is to be inhabited by the Valg.

Maas also introduces a new character in this book, Elide, Aelin's nurses's daughter. Who is also a Lady of Terrasen. She's been imprisoned by her uncle for the last 10 years, and has basically been doing what she can to survive. She still holds hope that Aelin is alive and will save them all. She's in Morath with the Ironteeth witches, and somehow earn their loyalty after Manon discovers that Elide has some witch blood in her. Through Elide, you can see how Manon's storyline is going to intersect with Aelin's. They do actually meet in the last third of the book, and Aelin saves Manon after an epic beatdown. However, their encounter is brief. You get the sense that Manon will eventually breakaway from the Matron and join Aelin. But that probably won't happen till the end of the next book.

The biggest revelation, I think, in this book, is that the king is a pawn for the Valg king. During the course of this book, you discover that the biggest baddie that was supposedly killed 500 years ago, was actually only imprisoned. And Lord Perrath freed him with the King of Adarlan's help. But the Valg king took Lord Perrath's body, while the King of Adarlan has only been a pawn the whole time.  If you recall, Lord Perrath is the creepy bastard that I didn't think much of and didn't bother to talk about in my post about Throne of Glass. And Kaltain is still with him, but she ends up freeing herself from him in the end. Not in a pretty way, and you feel so bad for her, but she finally got to exact some of her revenge. Also, you find out that Roland, Dorian's cousin, was used as a test run before they snapped the collar on Dorian. Roland gets killed by Manon, and is happy about it.

At the end of the book, Aelin and crew head for Terrasen to begin the next book, Dorian is King of Adarlan, Chaol is paralyzed from the waist down from the boss battle and is going to the South to get healing/start diplomatic relations for the war, Elide is on her way to Terrasen to meetup with her family, and the witches remain with the baddies for now.

After I finished reading the book, I kind of realize the difference between a YA and an adult fiction book is just the way sex is portrayed and the length of the denouement. There is sex in YA books, but its vague and more emphasis on the value of waiting for the right time. And the denouement in this book was almost 100 pages. That's a whole novella. Everything was wrapped up so neatly. Whereas in adult fantasy, there are no qualms about just cutting everything off and let people suffer the terrible cliffhanger. Or maybe it's just Maas who does that.