Finishing What You Started

Cherish is the sixth and final book in Tracy Wolff's Crave series.

Some series conclusions are triumphant. Some are quiet. Cherish is the third kind: the one that arrives after the story has already peaked and has to justify existing.

Three months have passed since Cyrus fell. The Vampire Court has no king. The Dragon Court is grieving. The Gargoyle Court is held by a teenager who is still, technically, a student. And the Circle (the governing structure of the supernatural world) is collapsing.

Grace owes the Crone a favour. The Crone has come to collect. And the debt leads back to the Shadow Realm, to a queen who nearly ended them, and to a bargain that has to be made to save Mekhi.

What Works

The Shadow Realm return has weight. After Charm, going back means something. Grace has her memories now, which changes the texture of every location.

Hudson and Grace's relationship remains the anchor. Wolff does not manufacture a third-act rift between them, which many authors would have. They are a functioning partnership under strain, and the strain comes from outside.

The ensemble gets closure. Every significant character receives an ending, and several of them are genuinely moving. Wolff also handles a queer relationship among the supporting cast with an unfussy naturalness the series had not previously attempted.

The final chapters land. When the book finally arrives at its climax, the emotional payoffs of six volumes are real.

Where It Struggles. And It Does

We will be direct, because this is the review where being direct matters most: Cherish is widely considered the weakest book in the series, and the criticism is largely fair.

It is padded. At just under 600 pages, a substantial portion is Grace's internal monologue circling the same anxieties: her fitness to rule, her guilt, her fear of losing people. The concerns are legitimate. The repetition is not. Many readers report the first half being a genuine slog.

The plot arrives late. The consensus figure among reviewers is that the book becomes engaging somewhere around the final quarter. That is a long wait.

The escalation strains. Grace's progression from human to gargoyle to something considerably more is the kind of power inflation that lowers stakes rather than raising them. By the end, the question of whether she can win is not really in doubt.

Court resolved the story. This is the structural problem underneath everything else. The central conflict of the series (Cyrus, the Circle, the war) concluded two books ago. Cherish has to construct a new threat to justify a sixth volume, and the seams are visible.

The Velvet Coven Verdict

Cherish is a flawed finale to a series that peaked in its middle. It is too long, too internal, and too slow to start, and it is carrying the weight of a story that had already delivered its climax.

It is also the ending, and for readers who have followed Grace and Hudson across six books, that counts for something. The last quarter delivers real emotion, the ensemble gets the closure it earned, and the final note between Grace and Hudson is exactly right.

Our honest recommendation: if you loved this series, finish it, but adjust your expectations and consider the audiobook for the slower stretches. If you were already wavering after Court, you have our permission to stop there and imagine the rest. Court works as an ending.

That is not a verdict we enjoy giving to a series we mostly liked. But you came here for an honest one.

Quick Reference

  • Author: Tracy Wolff
  • Published: May 2023 (Entangled Teen)
  • Series: Crave, Book 6, series finale
  • Pages: 592
  • Setting: Katmere Academy, the Shadow Realm, the Courts
  • Tropes: Series finale, bargain, found family, reluctant queen, ascension
  • Spice level: 3/5, YA register
  • Status: #1 NYT Bestseller, series conclusion