This was my absolute favorite in the entire series. For those of you keeping track that means it now goes: Dream, Voyage, Curse, Destiny, Quest. The perspective change was actually really refreshing. Thankfully Kishan isn’t quite as whiny as Kelsey is, but he is pretty bull headed and there were still several times in the book where I wanted to literally smack him. I adore Anamika/Durga (Ana) as a character! I found her to be well rounded and a strong female character. Shes sure of her self and knows what she wants and goes after her and yet there is such a vulnerability to her cause of what she went through as a child. To me the book stands apart from the original 4 but its also defiantly not a stand alone. Its almost like a prequel but not really. The way I kinda described it to my friends is that if the first four books were a movie the 5th would almost be like a prequel mixed with behind the scenes bonus content mixed with an epilogue.

This book kinda jumps all over the place and plays with all kinds of timelines. We learn what happens to Kishan after he stays with Durga and how the curse came into being and how the mechanics of the curse worked. I found it all be really interesting the way it was pieced together is so layered and intricate its really mind boggling. I got answers to questions I didn’t even know I had. I think my favorite thing was watching Kishan and Ana go from adversaries to friends to lovers to soulmates. The love story to me was a lot more my speed then Ren and Kelsey’s. Ren and Kelsey were insta-love turned on again off again on again lovers, while Kishan and Ana were this slow build to trust and friendship and eventually two people madly in love. I mean the book is about 800 pages and for about 600 of those pages they can barely admit their feelings to themselves it seems. I also really enjoyed watching Kishan grow as a character more. We finally get to see him heal from the loss of the two women he thought he loved and heal from what he perceived to be his own failures. Kishan was definitely one of my favorite characters from the previous four books along with Kadam, but Ana really stole the show for me. Houck did a fantastic job in creating a really strong female lead here (if only she had done that for Kelsey). Ana is a drop dead gorgeous women. Kishan often describes her beauty in his inner monologues, but not only does he describe he beauty he describes her strength as a warrior as well as her venerability as a human. It makes her instantly likable as does the fact that she is unfamiliar with modern thing cause she was born in like the 16 or 1700s. Really what made me love the relationship between them was the Kishan sees her as an equal in every way. He wants to protect her but knows that she can protect herself. Ana views Kishan as an equal in every way too and she lets him protect her because its nice to be cared for. Unlike in Ren and Kelsey’s relationship where its seems Ren views Kelsey as a weak creature that needs protecting and Kelsey doesn’t really think she can protect herself. Ana is what Kelsey pretends to be really.

All in all for sure a five star read for me and one of my favorites of 2019 thus far. I think its a perfect addition to the saga as a whole and completes the story. Totally made me feel all the feels I felt reading the first 4 for the first time.