The Endless War by Danielle L Jensen

The 37th book I consumed this year was The Endless War by Danielle L Jensen, the fourth book in the Bridge Kingdom Series.

As this is the last in the series, expect spoilers for the earlier books!

A vague summary of the plot

This book picks up shortly after the events of book 3, with Keris facing the consequences of his actions. By saving Zara he has condemned her, as her Aunt, the Empress, exiles her to the worst prison in the kingdoms. Rather than publicly executing her as a traitor, she sends Zara to a prison from which nobody returns. Keris is supposed to be concentrating on running his own kingdom but he cannot let Zara rot in prison for his mistakes. So he turns to Ithacana, ruled by his half sister and her husband, for help because Keris needs the Ithacanian sailing knowledge in order to sail through storm season. Under the guise of a diplomatic mission, he visits their kingdom and manages to convince them to assist him.

In the prison, Zara discovers that a place that was meant to only hold the worst kind of prisoners, has become a dumping ground for anyone who disagrees with her Aunt’s regime and pursuit of the Endless War. This prison is essentially a deserted island below a whirlpool, when prisoners are taken there, they are thrown into the whirlpool to wash up on the island. The island has divided into two factions, both of whom seem to know who she is immediately. Zara chooses the more peaceful seeming tribe, who have a rule that she must hunt her own food but otherwise they would provide shelter for her. She soon becomes suspicious of the ‘meat’ the tribe is eating and escapes to the other tribe, only to find that a mysterious benefactor has bribed them to keep her alive, whose motivation Zara cannot work out but she is suspicious of it.

When Keris finally makes it onto the island, he falls in with the tribe of cannibals Zara left, who are all former members of the rebellion army. He chooses to collaborate with them to rescue Zara and get her out of the prison. But when they finally get free, they must face the consequences of Keris’s actions, in order to fight to end the Endless War for good.

What did I think?

I really enjoyed this book! I think it’s a great conclusion to Zara and Keris’s narrative, it also wraps up some of the loose ends from Lara and Aaron’s narrative. I do wish the part of the story where he is rescuing Zara was a bit shorter because the rest of the narrative moves at much faster pace, which I enjoyed more but it was still interesting. I felt that the resolution to the war is well done and the final climatic battle is pretty edge of your seat. I listened to this as an audio and the audio books for this whole series are really enjoyable.

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