The Raven Cycle #3: Blue Lily, Lily Blue by Maggie Stiefvater

This is the third book of a series that is beginning to become extremely interesting. It was good to begin with, but as the story continues it becomes even more layered, with complex plotting and characterization that a reader can really sink their teeth into.

The tale involves 4 boys at a Virginia prep school who are on a quest to find a mythical Welsh king. It’s not an ordinary sort of quest, and these are most definitely not ordinary boys. In the process they meet up with a group of women living in the small town (at 300 Fox Way) where the school is located, woman who are psychic and unusual and just as fringe in their way as the boys are.

The mixture is delightful and infuriating and there are conundrums within enigmas, such as how Blue Sargent (the teenage girl at 300 Fox Way), who is not a seer, actually saw (in the seer kind of way) a spirit on St. Mark’s Eve. According to the mystical women she lives with, that means either she killed the person, or the person was her one true love, or both. That person is Gansey, one of the Raven Boys who are questing for the Welsh king.

In this third book, Blue becomes even more entangled with the Raven Boys and becomes an active part of their quest rather than just an interested onlooker. The relationships between the four boys and Blue are well-developed, and I found myself rooting for everyone involved, even the less likable characters. You find yourself wanting this quest to succeed, and for everything to work out. Part of the hook of the series, though, is that you can’t be sure it will, and so you keep coming back for more, eagerly awaiting the next book to find out what happens NEXT.