I do not know how I can talk about this book without giving away an absolutely massive spoiler, so I will keep my spoiler-free review of this book to the beginning of this post. Once I get to where the spoilers are, please understand that if you read beyond that point and you haven’t yet read this book, the rest of the review will utterly ruin this enormous twist.

Spoiler free: I am jumping a ways ahead here by reviewing this book. My last review was of the third book in the Homeland trilogy, a prequel series that was published after the Icewind Dale trilogy to give us a better understanding of who Drizzt is and where he comes from. I’m jumping ahead not because I didn’t like the other books (I honestly haven’t read them all yet), but because this book stands out as being one of the best in the entire Legend of Drizzt series. I’m not kidding — this book is probably one of the best books in the entire series and it made me cry well over three different times.

This is a stand alone novel in that it isn’t part of a trilogy, but it does require that you already know the primary players (Drizzt, Catty-Brie, Brunor, Regis, and Wulfghar) and at least some of what their history is together. I can’t go into the details of the plot, but essentially, this book covers how the companions of the hall find their way back to Drizzt after a time apart. It is imperative that they find him, and they have to go through a lot of trials and personal tests to get there. Tests one of them nearly fails.

This book, like so many of the others, captures the really intricate details of just how strong the bonds are between these companions. There are themes of family and love, friendship and trust, fate and free will, anger and forgiveness, among others. In a lot of the other books, only one or two characters will get the focus of the narrative, but in this novel, they are all given time to develop and grow beyond the characters we have known up to this point, and into similar but different versions of themselves. It is stunningly written with careful attention to each character’s story.

SPOILERS AFTER THIS POINT. Seriously. If you don’t want one of the biggest (if not the biggest) twist in the series ruined, then don’t read beyond this point.

At this point in the series, Drizzt is the only remaining companion of the hall who is alive. All of the others have died either from sickness or old age. He has tried to build his life into something that he can stand without his closest friends, but in truth, he has fallen away from who he was before.

But this book isn’t about Drizzt. It’s about the rebirth of the companions of the hall. Drizzt’s goddess, Mielikki, keeps the souls of the companions in a magical wood that is on a different plane of existence until they have all gathered there. Brunor is the last one to arrive. Catty-Brie explains that they are given a chance to be reborn and that they have to save Drizzt. Those of them who choose to be reborn are brought back into the world, only they are born with all of their memories from their past life. They are born fully aware of who they are, where they’ve been, and what they must do.

Each of them is given a new chance at family and identity, and the reader follows them through childhood and into their new adulthood. They are given a specific day and time where they must meet one another, and it is there that they must save Drizzt’s life. If they are off by even a mere moment, he will die and their rebirth will have been for naught.

There are so many new characters in this book that steal your heart immediately. It is a stunning examination of the power of love and friendship and the many ways that we can remake ourselves. One of the most emotional books in this series, I highly recommend this book. And it is this book that also gives the series itself a rebirth of sorts, taking the reader out of the world that has been and opening up new possibilities, new conflicts, new stories that promise to be even more entertaining than the books before it.

Read this book. It really is fantastic.