Within the Sanctuary of Wings is the conclusion to the main arc of Lady Isabella Trent's story, ending with the expedition that brought her the most fame in the mountains of a country with which she has a rather colorful history.

Unfortunately, this final entry is easily my least favorite of the entire series, which is why I have yet to get to the additional book that follows her granddaughter even though I own it. It's here that Brennan reveals what she's been working towards throughout the series. I don't think I can really explain my dissatisfaction without getting into spoilers so: What I've loved about this series is Isabella learning about the different species of dragons and pursuing her own scholarship regarding them. The reveal that the Draconeans were really dragon/human hybrids who somehow still existed in a sort of Shangri-La was completely unbelievable and uninteresting to me. And it felt weird to have her crowning achievement be something more related to her husband's studies than her own about dragons. I'd rather have seen her join the society for discoveries related to dragons themselves than for just stumbling upon an ancient race. It was just a step too far for me and made me lose interest in the series as a whole.

The reveals in this book were unfortunately both underwhelming and disappointing and it felt like the threads that I cared about were left behind for something that I very much did not have interest in. And the character development that I enjoyed in the previous two books in the series was abandoned in favor of Isabella just magically stumbling into something again. I don't regret reading this series but this ending leaves much to be desired for me.