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3 STARS FOR "TAKE THE KEY AND LOCK HER UP" BY ALLY CARTER

Two hundred years ago, there was a palace coup and, in the chaos, a baby was smuggled free. The Society hid her among their own. She was raised in secret. Protected. Safe. And, eventually, she grew up, and her bloodline survived.
Until someone started trying to kill us.

Out of all three Embassy Row books, I think this one was Ally Carter's strongest. There's a lot of development with Grace's emotional state. She's not "cured" or "fixed" of the trauma she's experienced, but there's quite a few times where she manages to keep it all under control. Grace's romance with Alexei felt less forced this time around, and I think that's because we got to see a little more background on him as a person, as opposed to just acting like her guardian. He's not my favourite of Ally Carter's love interests, but he does share some really sweet moments with Grace in this book that is bound to make fans of the Alexei/Grace pairing happy. Also, I'm really happy Carter didn't end up writing a love triangle between Grace, Alexei, and the prince. The prince actually turns out to be incredibly sweet, even if its apparent that he has a small crush on Grace. I really, really liked him, and I'm sad that we really only got to spend time with him in this 1 book. He and Grace had a natural friendship that I enjoyed reading about.

Unfortunately, if you're looking to find more of Jamie, Noah, Rosie, etc. you're going to be disappointed. Jamie, due to his injuries, is only in a couple scenes. Her friends have involvement in the final installment, but Grace tends to be isolated a lot in this book. Especially in the last half of the book, where Grace has to take matters into her own hands and distance herself from her friends.

I was really surprised with the ending! It definitely was not what I expected, and probably one of the "darkest" things I've seen in Ally's novels. I'm not sure how I feel about it, but I think I like seeing different sides of our heroes and heroines.