I really enjoyed this newest installment in the Casquette Girls' series. I loved the MCs' ventures into the Afterword to hunt the Ghost Drinkers and rescue Adele's dad. I loved how the MCs' got to see their ancestors and dead relatives and we got a glimpse into various cultures and backgrounds that make up New Orleans- Native American, African American, Italian, and French. It makes me want to visit New Orleans again and explore the cultural references made in these books.

I was a little disappointed to find out the author plans to release one more book in the series. This book was released in January 2021 and we still don't have a release date for the 5th and final. I hate when books are published that far apart. It'll be hard to keep your fanbase.

Holy heckin’ wowowowowowowowow!!! I’ll keep this review spoiler-free except for a little section at the bottom and the summary, so if you haven’t read the first three books of this series, just avoid those sections so you’re not spoiled when you go read the books :)

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“As curses come, as curses go…”

Goodreads summary:

As the Ghost Drinkers seep into the crevices of the Crescent City, leeching the French Quarter of magic, the local witches are consumed with a new fight for survival. Adele has one chance to save everyone she loves, but it will mean breaking away from her coven and trusting a vampire.

For the first time in four hundred years, Niccolò Medici feels on the precipice of finding his stolen grimoire. But in order to restore his family’s legacy, he’ll have to succumb to his darkest desires.

New York transplant and first responder Isaac Thompson will stop at nothing to protect Adele, even if he has to give in to his Spektral magic to unearth the truth about Nicco’s monstrous past.

For those who choose to pass through the Gates of Guinée, the rules of the Afterworld are simple: Don’t eat the food. Tell no lies.

In a whirl of lucid dreams, fetish markets, and ancestral reunions, only those who bare their souls will survive this ghostly hunt, or else they’ll join the land of the dead permanently.

Teetering on the razor’s edge between everything she desires and utter madness, only her heart and her magic can lead Adele back home... if only Callisto Salazar hadn’t stolen her Fire, and the most secretive one of them all hadn’t stolen her heart.

Wow. Just wow. It’s been a long time since I have been so shocked and twisted around in the span of a single book. This book is pure, glittery, mysterious, magical chaos, and I loved every. Single. Page.

“We keep things hidden with masks and glitter and songs that steal your soul and drinks that steal your memories. We sing in the streets, cry in the streets, and bleed in the streets. New Orleans will be your muse. She'll fuel your dreams and your vices and your kinks. She’ll tie you up and make you beg for more, all while you search for the je ne sais quoi giving you that joie de vivre, never knowing that the magic flows freely and the dead thrive and the witches rule… Why wouldn’t the gates to the Afterworld be here? Hidden in plain sight amongst the living, guarded by the dead, covered up by stories of the magical?”

I feel like I’m in so deep with these characters that I’m not sure how to write much of a spoiler-free review, to be honest. The magical world Alys Arden has constructed is… unique, and that’s a huge accomplishment in the YA industry. I have read so many books that most of them are decently predictable to me. Not necessarily a bad thing, just the truth. But this series makes me feel ALIVE again in my reading! The angst as I wonder furiously if my ship is endgame, the utter confusion because I have no idea what’s going on but in the best way, the emotional thrill ride that is reading a book and you see nothing coming before it smacks you straight in the feels. That’s what reading this series is like. There’s a lot of character development in this one, some that has been much needed, and I think that was a big focus of this addition to the series, along with the introduction of an insane new side of New Orleans where nothing is as it seems!!

“A part of me wanted to sabotage the mission so my secrets stayed buried, as they had been for two centuries. But another part of me believed enigmatically in her. In us.”

I am obsessed with this series and I mean it when I tell you that if I could make everyone read one series, this one literally might just be it. This is the fourth book, so you have four to binge before the fifth and final book comes out (PLEASE MAKE IT QUICK ALYS ARDEN!!), so hop on it, y’all!! You really don’t want to miss out on this unpredictable joyride filled to the brim with witches and vampires, spirits and possessed, love and hatred. It’s utterly genius.

Spoiler-y section below for some discussion if you’ve read this book! Keep comments spoiler-free but feel free to message me if you want to fangirl!!

This book just about broke me. I finished it last night before bed, big mistake. I had to take about ten minutes telling myself that the characters weren't real, that what happened hadn't truly occurred. I found myself feeling for every single character in this book. There was no villain, no "good guy," only humans (and vampires). For that alone, I give the book a 5/5.
Being from New Orleans, the descriptions, especially City Park, filled my heart with absolute joy and longing. I'd love to be there now. I cannot wait for the next book. I'll be checking my inbox everyday for news about it.

I...have no coherent words for what i just read. Other than to say that Alys took my heart and broke it into pieces, to make it better again, and then to leave me at quite a cliffhanger. I need the fifth book, NOW!!

3.5ish. SPOILERS AHEAD

I lost all respect for adele in this book because she goes swings wildly between nicco and isaac depending on her mood, and which one she's angry with at the moment. It is exhausting keeping up with her mental state.

The other extremely frustrating thing about this book in particular is the timeline. We jump months ahead and spend a few chapters on one day then skip weeks, spend chapters on another day, and then suddenly we get an explosion of events that take place over 30 or so chapters--that all happen in one day, AFTER sundown. They had time to begin a night festival, argue, make up, take care of the sick, have sex for hours, have a sudden battle in the city, argue (and make up) again, patrol the streets, gather souls, have the leaders get called away in an emergency hours away AND get back later to help with stuff, plan to go to the underworld, discover an unexpected shrine, meet up with the rest of the coven and adapt the underworld plan, gather the thousands of souls that were somehow collected in this timeframe while half of them had been triaging inflicted humans, and then go to the underworld and get back--all under the same moon that night for the festival. There's just no way.