I thoroughly enjoyed the first two books in the Graceling series, and this one definitely did not disappoint. Everything about this book was brilliant - the characters, the plot, the mysteries, the world-building. I would highly recommend this (and the first two books) to anyone interested in fantasy worlds.One of my favourite things about this series are the characters. They're all so different and interesting, and I enjoyed meeting a new range of characters in this book. Teddy and Saf quickly became favourites with their antics, and they became even more interesting as their back-story became apparent. There were also many interesting characters in the castle, and they all had plenty of secrets to discover. Of course, there are returning characters and seeing them (and their relationship with the others) again was wonderful.In [b:Graceling|3236307|Graceling (Graceling Realm, #1)|Kristin Cashore|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1331548394s/3236307.jpg|3270810], we first to discover the world of Bitterblue and Katsa. In [b:Fire|14546775|Fire|Kristin Cashore|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1355866071s/14546775.jpg|6128277], we become a part of Fire's world, which is completely to different to Katsa's. What's nice about [b:Bitterblue|12680907|Bitterblue (Graceling Realm, #3)|Kristin Cashore|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1331532273s/12680907.jpg|6508730] is that instead of her traveling miles around the kingdoms, she stays in the one place for the whole story. Instead of briefly visiting various villages and people, we get to explore Bitterblue City in more detail with Bitterblue as she discovers the place for the first time. Reading about her visits to the story rooms and to Teddy and Saf's house made me smile.The plot itself was wonderful. I loved how the book followed Bitterblue trying to figure what her kingdom is like and what happened in the past during Leck's reign. The gradual reveal of an event or a secret followed by another mystery to solve intrigued me, and I loved how different characters got involved in different ways.Another part that deserves a mention was the way ciphers were used. I loved the use of the different ciphers and Bitterblue or Death (who quickly became yet another favourite character) explaining how they worked. The diagrams of the ciphers and other languages were also lovely.Finally, the small Who's Who at the end was lovely. I enjoyed reading the description of each character in Death's voice and his little comments about what he thought of various people. Also, the art in my copy was lovely, especially the pictures of the bridges and the drawings at the beginning of each part of the book. They added a nice feel to the book.Overall, I loved the book and I will be rereading the entire series soon to appreciate everything again.
