It's rare when a much-anticipated book lives up to your expectations - well, BITTERBLUE was one of them for me. I loved this so much that I'm struggling to articulate what I liked or why I did. In fact, I'm not quite sure that I actually know why I loved it - only that I struggled to put the book down (darn real life for getting in the way) and loved every beautifully-written chapter.

Less romance-y than previous books, more grown-up - BITTERBLUE was both about a girl negotiating the passageways to adulthood and a girl learning how to be a queen, and at the end, I was so proud of the woman Bitterblue was becoming. The overarching themes of secrets and ciphers and hidden meanings were played out nicely (though perhaps with a slightly heavy hand at times), and leavened with nice touches of humour throughout (Death, anyone?).

I liked how BITTERBLUE tied its companion books, Graceling and Fire, together and it was nice to have things slowly click into place. It's somewhat unusual to see previous protagonists in later life (here I admit that while I liked Graceling, it wasn't a keeper, while Fire was) and it was interesting to see Katsa and Po's relationship depicted from an outsider's perspective, and also to find out what happened after the end of Fire.

While not everything was tied up neatly with a bow at the end, I think I got enough hints as to how certain things would play out and I closed the book feeling extremely satisfied. I cannot wait to read whatever Kristin Cashore writes next.

PS I must mention my favourite (bittersweet) exchange towards the end (though massively spoiler-y)(view spoiler)[, which contained this statement: "We've both asked each other the same question." Ahhhh. (hide spoiler)]