Nothing remarkable, but then this is a small bonus story, not a full novel. Judging a book by its cover: A pretty simple cover, in shades of blue, with a feather and the layline symbol found in the other Raven Cycle covers.

I was never tied to it, one of the ladies had replied, and I’ve always felt it. I didn’t think I’d be able to, now that I’m not tied to the line anymore. It wasn’t exactly what I was expecting – so others might like it a lot more than me. Opal was playing a game called hide-her-hooves and she was winning it by standing in an empty flour crock that was positioned by the kitchen doorway. Now I don’t want to complain about bonus content from an author, but I absolutely adore Ronan and Adam, and while it was lovely to “see” them again, I would probably have liked this a lot more if it was told through the POV of a human narrator, rather than a rather flighty dream creature. There are cameos and/or mentions of other familiar characters, as well as possible hints of what is to come (Stiefvater has confirmed that she’s writing a new trilogy about Ronan). Yet readers will get some idea of how Ronan and Adam are doing and how their lives are proceeding.

Told in a somewhat disjointed and sometimes confusing way by Opal, the little dream creature created by Ronan, the readers get to see some of what is happening in the lives of Ronan and Adam after the events of The Raven King. As Opal is not really from our world, her perspective on things is not exactly that of a human. This is a short story set after the events of The Raven King, the fourth and final novel in The Raven Cycle.There will be spoilers for some of the plot in those books, so if you want to remain entirely unspoiled and haven’t yet read these excellent books, come back after you’ve caught up.

Maggie stiefvater opal