This is the final book (supposedly) in Megan Bannen's Tanria Trilogy!
Honestly this was one of my most highly anticipated releases for 2025- and in fact, when saddened by the world, I did remind myself that Rosie and Adam would be coming out as something to look forward to as things seem to be going up in flames all around us. IT DID NOT DISAPPOINT!
I was lucky to receive an advance copy of the audiobook! Narrators Kacie Rogers and Jim Frangione really brought to life Rosie's "act first think later" personality and Adam's reserved demeanor- as well as the magic of Tanria and all of the beloved characters we adore!
Because this book is billed as romance, I do not think it gets enough credit as a novel that is also fantasy and has some fairly extensive world building which doesn't have a lot of plot holes. One of the biggest themes that all of Bannen's novels deal with in this series is the idea of immortality and death. In some ways, I really found all three of the novel's exploration of death and or lack of death to be fascinating and frankly very comforting. People fear death, and a popular fantasy trope is immortality- granting a character time to make lots of mistakes, woo lots of lovers and generally feel they haven't missed out on anything. As a person with extremely elderly parents, the idea of death is constantly on my mind and I am sometimes filled with some anxiety regarding the changes it will inevitably create. Bannen addresses this with her immortal and mortal characters, and in the end, shows that possibly mortality is a better bet for most. It certainly was comforting to see characters who had lived for decades and decades feeling that it wasn't all it's cut out to be as an experience. This is all set in a fun, campy very 1950's cowboy country kind of atmospheric world, with of course some very active Gods (both old and new ones indeed!) and it's just fun to read about the clothing and wonderful Auto-ducks (cars that are water and land rovers) while contemplating just exactly what will happen between our lovely Rosie and lonely Adam!
As far as a romance, this also has a lot to offer- a tall demi-god and a short king, an age gap (Adam is a few thousand years old while Rosie is only 150! Oh - La-La!), forced proximity trope (work project gone wrong), DRAGONS!, possibly he Falls First - though it seems that they really fell years ago, but didn't have an opportunity to pursue things properly. The Happy Ever After ending was perfectly satisfying as both Rosie and Adam had started off in such a lonely state. Readers who has read the entire series will be glad to know that Bannen doesn't leave up hanging with Zeddy and Duckers- we do indeed find out how they are coming along as well.
Highly recommend this book if you're looking for a quirky, fresh romance with some LGBTQIA representation (not the major focus), dragons, and an entirely tear jerking romance.
STATS
First Published : July 2025
Pages: 432
Available as an Audio Book :YES
Trigger Warnings: Death, parental neglect (minor),family drama, toxic relationships.