Dreams of Ruin
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Synopsis
Love, magic, gods, and monsters collide in the thrilling conclusion to the Soul of Shadow trilogy, a romantic fantasy for fans of Twilight and Teen Wolf.
When Charlie Hudson awakens after her Trial, it’s to find that nothing will ever be the same. The king of the gods is plotting to destroy Asgard. Charlie and her brother are trapped a world away from the people they love most. And worst of all, she’s become the very thing she hates most: a night mare.
Charlie’s transition is anything but smooth. Stuck in Helheim Palace, she must train her new shadow magic alongside dozens of soulless mares who would gladly turn her over to the enemy if they discovered she’s Loki’s true heir.
Her only hope is Elias Everhart, her once-sworn enemy who has somehow become one of her closest allies. He’s promised to help train her mare abilities—an easy idea in theory, if her magic weren’t malfunctioning… and if being near Elias didn’t make the darkness within Charlie grow bigger and more all consuming by the day. Charlie is in a race against time to reconcile the powers warring within her. Because if the threat on Asgard isn’t enough to kill her… love certainly will be.
Dreams of Ruin by Emma Noyes is the thrilling conclusion to the Soul of Shadow trilogy, where the only thing worse than becoming a nightmare, is loving one.
Synopsis source: The StoryGraph
Review
Genre(s): Young Adult, Fantasy, Romance
HB&W Rating: 3 stars
View on StoryGraph, Goodreads
Buy on Barnes & Noble, Amazon
Pub Date: November 17, 2026
As a series ending, I got the closure I needed from the story, but the book was underwhelming and not what I’d been hoping for. I had hoped for a return to the vibes of the first book, but the issues I had with the second book returned in the third.
Elias felt wholly inconsistent across all three books and not in a character arc kind of way, more in a doesn’t know what kind of MMC he is kind of way. Charlie’s propensity to bury her head in the sand and avoid avoid avoid continues into this book and left her feeling weak, indecisive, and immature—not the kind of FMC I like. Additionally, my favorite character throughout the series, Henry, barely gets any on-page time in this installment.
The story moved incredibly slowly for the greater part of the book. Purportedly, this was to further build the world of Helheim and dump information to move the plot forward. However, the world-building didn’t really come off the page for me and the pacing put me to sleep on more than one occasion. The plot itself felt very contrived. I know that this is fantasy, so obviously it is all “contrived,” but it lacked that organic progression and felt more like the author needed to make sure certain things happened at specific times and simply made up some convenient workaround to make it happen. The end was also rather underwhelming and unsurprising.
In all, this was an underwhelming conclusion to a series that started strong and just petered out.
Thank you to Wednesday Books and NetGalley for an eARC of this book in exchange for my honest review.
Until next time,
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