I didn’t know if I would be keeping this title as I drafted it before I read Andrzej Sapkowski’s fifth and final Witcher novel, The Lady of the Lake, but after finishing the novel I think it is pretty spot on. With all that has been happening, all the characters we met along the way, and all the events that have occurred, this is the ending we get to the Witcher series?

War rages on as the Child of the Prophecy is trapped. After escaping from the Tower of the Swallow, Ciri finds herself lost in a distant world. Separated from Geralt and her destiny in a place where time does not seem to exist, she can see no way back. But this is Ciri, the child of prophecy, and she will not be defeated. She must find a way to return home – and conquer her worst nightmare.

There are many things I want to say but they reveal too much about the specific events and happenings of the novel, so instead, I will try and speak in loose relation to these points of interest. For one, it seems Ciri’s agency and autonomy was stripped away from her once again for the sake of an adult fantasy novel ruled by the predominant and recurring theme of men trying to take from women, especially in terms of sexual relief and securing an heir. More than once, we see Ciri get sexually abused and assaulted. Once was more than enough. Not only that, but her vehement opposition to being anyone’s pawn, anyone’s breeding piece for alliances and asserting power, is washed away in the final scene of the book like this hasn’t been a core part of her being for the whole series.

One of my biggest grievances with The Lady of the Lake is that is features so many chapters and scenes where our main characters are not present nor hold the topic of discussion. This has been happening throughout the series, but I was hoping that this book would contain less of that given we are at a significant point in the overarching storyline. Instead, passages upon passages of dialogue that has nothing to do with the immediate and interesting aspects of this novel plague the pages. I understand that my focus on the main plot line with Geralt, Yennefer, and Ciri may not be of interest to everyone, but given they are the main characters in this series I figured they should have more page-time than miscellaneous characters who are chattering over detail that has little value in the grand scope of things.

My favourite part of the novel was the climax where all three of our main characters are in the same place and there is the great big battle we have been anticipating all series. The part where things actually should be exciting and intense and bloody and engrossing. They were, and I even considered rating the book a little higher because of this scene, but it was short-lived and the denouement felt lacklustre and directionless, pulling that rating back down to where I feel it comfortably rests (though I am considering lowering it further because of how disappointing of an ending it is). A shoutout is deserved for the fact we see Geralt be a Witcher once more and attack monsters during this read. I would love to have seen more of that.

I don’t quite know what else to say about The Lady of the Lake. It marks the ending of a novel series that could have been so much, but I will save my laments for the series review. Perhaps I should suggest readers skip straight to that sequence of reunion and carnage, that way they don’t have to wade through 300 pages of not much. Perhaps I am being too cruel to this novel and this series. I don’t know anymore, but what I do know is that once Season of Storms is read I can wipe my hands of this series and bid it farewell. Except for Crossroads of Ravens, of course. I’ll return to read that when I get my hands on it.