River of Lavender

The Allium #3

by Mallory Benjamin

Power will destroy you

Sie Noren is sentenced to life in the most callous and impenetrable prison. Once you’re in, there’s no escaping. Forced to relive his worst nightmares over and over again, he must distinguish reality from illusion.

Scotlind Rumor is a fugitive. After escaping the Luxian City with the Fire Prince, she’s on the run in mortal territory, desperately trying to stay alive. But the stronger she becomes, the more the Lux King wants her, and he will stop at nothing until he has her back.

Tezya Xandrin’s relationship with Scotlind is on ice, and it grows thinner by the day as more secrets are revealed to her. With an impending war on the horizon, they must put aside their feelings and work together to uncover the prophecy and save their world before it’s too late.

Genres: Fantasy

616 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 24, 2025

About the author

Mallory Benjamin is the author of the new-adult fantasy romance series, Lake of Sapphire and Ocean of Silver. She graduated from Penn State with her bachelors in nursing and has worked as a nurse for eight years before becoming a full time author and mama. You can usually find her drafting stories with her baby on her lap. And when she isn’t completely consumed by fictional characters and imaginary worlds, she’s getting lost in fantasy books, taking an unseemly amount of pictures of her daughter, or eating chicken wings.

Reviews

[Kathleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I LOVE the characters in this book and I LOVE that you got multiple points of view. It was never confusing and was so easy to follow. I also appreciate that this was a fast-paced book and it just made it hard to put the book down.

[Mallory Benjamin · Rating 5 out of 5]

River of Lavender is the conclusion to Scotlind Rumor's story! 💜

[Mettesknit · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kindle.

I think the reason for the low score on this book is that I read it between other books.

If I read this in one sitting I would probably rate it higher, but here we are.

[Alisha Crane · Rating 3 out of 5]

It felt a lil bit rushed.

Every single character has the amount of trauma that would have had me asking for a lobotomy back in the day.

Great job for a first time author though tbh.

[Jade McKenna · Rating 2 out of 5]

I feel like we were getting to wrap up, but there's click bate of two new couples with little development or details just to get fans interested in another story, but it added minimally to this story, besides slowing down the plot.

[Victoria Stuart · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were a lot of great things about this book. It was nice to see a happy conclusion to Scottie’s story! I was very glad to see them end the tyranny in Advenían society.

The things that took away from it for me were a few pacing issues (the time in the camp drew out for me a bit too long and the ending battle in Lux was rushed and felt cut in half at the end).

The first 60% of the book was a game of prisoner swap (they break into one prison to get someone, then immediately lose someone else and have to break them out of Lux. Then they have to go back for someone else. It felt a little like an un-merry-go-round.

The main thing that bothered me was the stuff with Vallie and Miles. It felt really unnecessary and contrived and broke the tone of hope in the story in favor of something a lot darker than previously established. Not a fan of that.

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you made it this far in the series and enjoyed yourself, it would *literally* blow my socks off if you didn't like this book.
This book wraps up the story for the main character in The Allium Series, and I think the author pulled it off well. Usually, ending a series can be kind of rough, but I think she found a satisfying end while leaving the world open for future books.

This book majorly amps up... everything.
The pain, torture, sadness, loss, romance, friendship, and love all feel a lot more intense than the previous books.
This book was great, and it definitely helped pull this series up into my top favorite fantasy book series.

[Melanie Nelson · Rating 3 out of 5]

River of Lavender by Mallory Benjamin has an intriguing premise, but at 60% in, it feels like the heroes are endlessly chasing their tails. Rather than making progress in the rebellion, they keep circling back to continuously risk themselves in order to save people they forgot the last time they were there risking themselves. The repetition makes it hard to feel momentum, even with the stakes in place.

The first two book rated fairly high for me, so I’m a little disappointed in the lacking of this one.

[Pauline Johnson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Finally the ending of a great story. Granted this one I found difficult to get through. I skipped quite a bit of the sentences and passages. I pretty much got the meaning and what the author was trying to put down. I finally got the answers to all the questions I had from the previous books. There wasn't but maybe a hint of sexy time. Nothing worthy of a 🌶️. I really enjoyed the series, but the this one just took something out of it.

[Corinne · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book perfectly brought the plot and all the characters back together to finish up the Allium series! It answered so many questions I had along the way of the last two books and explained so much about WHY this has all been happening to the characters. I can’t wait to see what comes next for these characters in potential spinoff books!

[Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was so excited to receive the ARC for this book. I’ve been in such a big slump… And this was everything I needed.

Typically in book series, there’s always that one book that disappoints… I can hands down say this is my favorite series and I loved every single one, including the novella. I can’t wait to read more from this world!!

[Sage Young · Rating 4 out of 5]

I absolutely ADORED this series. I could not put them down! That all being said, I feel like this final book from Scotlind left me wanting more? I understand that there is more to come in this universe but, this book just felt incomplete to me. (Still totally recommend reading them though, these books give you ALL the feels)

Excited to see what comes next!

[Moyin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved how in this book there was always something happening. The plot was so fast paced, and the all of they characters were amazing, both the new and the old.
The book did feel a teeny bit rushed and left me wanting more, even though there was 80+ chapters.

*The plot does get dark a few times so be forewarned

[Victoria Richardson · Rating 5 out of 5]

A truly exceptional book that brings all of the elements in the past 3 books together. Such a satisfying page turner with meaningful grim character development. I cannot wait to continue to read and enjoy this world 💜

[Colleen Alexander · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely love it!

I loved the character development and getting to see additional POV’s.

It was fast paced and made me want to keep turning the page.

I can’t wait to see what Mallory writes in the future.

[Lindsey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really liked how fast paced this book was. It made it hard to put down! Loved this series and thought its conclusion was done well. Love these characters so I’m really looking forward to seeing more books in this world!

[Lexy Duncan · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm glad I finished the series. I enjoyed it as my guilty pleasure because I could turn off my brain and just enjoy the story. However, I'm really disappointed with the ending! There were so many opportunities for more closure and character development that we never got. Scotlind and Tezya got a fairytale ending, and we saw them grow together since book two. Why introduce all these new and old characters just to leave their stories so incomplete? Annoying.

In the first two books, so many characters were objectified and the descriptions of their clothing and bodies was honestly concerning on the author's end. For certain parts, it made sense. But the comments were so frequent at times I kept thinking, what is up with this? At least in this book there was more action and less unnecessary objectification of both the women and the men.

Everything bad up until this point and in this whole series could have been stopped if a single compulsion user went to anyone on the high council or to anyone with power and compelled them to change things and then forget about the compulsion. For how powerful Sie and Tezya are, they suck at actually using their powers. Why doesn't Sie take advantage of total mind control? I don't believe that him "hating using his powers" justifies rarely using them, especially when so much good could come from it. Not believable.

[Jenny Domres · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.8 it was still good but kind of drug on for 70% of the book and then the last 30% felt rushed and more details would have been nice but overall definitely recommend the series

[Lana Gooch · Rating 5 out of 5]

I got to read this as an ARC, and it was the PERFECT ending to Scotlind's story! Absolutely loved this trilogy, and I'm looking forward to more (maybe) from the side characters. :)