Desire

Uncontrollable desire wraps each of the young girls at Spence. Felicity simply cannot get enough of her beloved Pippa, feeling genuine happiness again in her life. Ann auditions as the lovely Nan Washbrad for a musical and is victorious, never in her life has she felt such happiness and glee. And Gemma is uncontrollably in love with Kartik for she dreams of him nonstop and is her object of affection and desire. The magic is also addictive for each of the girls. They feel they need it to be happy and is like a seductive drug, getting worse with time. Gemma is now using her undefined magic in her real life not only the realms. She uses it to temporarily fixed her messed up family, trick teachers, transform Ann into Nan Washbrad, and to make herself feel better when her life is dismal. The return of Miss McCleethy is of utter joy for most of the students at Spence Academy except the trio. She is a member of the Order, hungry for power. Gemma is surrounded by schemes and plans but none of them are revealed to her or the reader. Libba Bray makes the reader feel as if they were Gemma Doyle because both Gemma and they want to know what is going on in the Realms and figure out the ploys.

Magic Returns

The construction of the East Wing is the entertainment for the girls of Spence Academy in a form they've never had before, men. They never miss an oppurtunity to go over and "check out how the construction is going" or "sketch the new East Wing". But Gemma is utterly disappointed when Kartik is not among the bunch of workers, a pang of worry disrupting her heart. One misty night, Gemma is able to open the realms back up again because of the new door in the East Wing (where the Winterlands were closed forever). She frantically grabs Felicity and Ann and are overjoyed to be back in the realms at last. Felicity, the archer, Ann, the beautiful singer, and Gemma, the magical one all play with the thing they missed most in their lives. But getting back into the realms is not all fun and games, alliances must be formed and magic restored. Worst of all, when they the deceased Pippa, she is not the same as she used to be. One of the themes of the book is desire is uncontrollable, this is proved when Felicity is blinded just by the mere sight of Pippa. Also they raving desire for magic is worrying because they need to share it and not be greedy, or the whole magical world will go into chaos. Their teenage hormones raging along with the magic, anything could happen next.

New Troubles at Spence

At the beginning of this book, it starts off right after winter break (when Gemma closed the realms). Ann, the low esteemed troubled girl, has to deal with all of her fellow classmates being debuted in the spring while she is stuck being the maid for her cousins because she is from a poor family and is at Spence on a schaolarship. Not only does she have to deal with her friends recieving all of her dreams but now that the realms are closed, she has no sanctuary to be what she wants to be. She has always given herself cuts on her arms, but Gemma instinctively notices that they have started coming in more frequent intervals. And Gemma's other best friend, Felicity, is the rebel who seems to have everything she wants handed to her. But little does Felicity know that she may not be sponsored to have a debut, therefore not allowing her her grandmother's fortune, which would force Felicity to grovel at her father's feet. Both friends nag Gemma to open the realms again, but Gemma simply cannot make the shimmering door appear in her mind. Kartik also has not been seen since the last realms trip, which depresses Gemma, for she longs to see her face and kiss his lips once more.

The Sweetest Far Thing

This novel is the ending of the trilogy including The Great and Terrible Beauty, Rebel Angels, and now finally The Sweetest Far Thing. These novels create a new world from the late 1800s Britain, a place where women were expected to be poised and elegant and to follow all of the rules. When Gemma Doyle is forcefully relocated to Spence Academy, a school made to get girls ready for their debuts, she turns the tables around. She and her friends, Felicity and Ann, make their own stories as they prepare to become women. But that's not the only thing that's special about Gemma, she has a fantastic power of being able to go into another world, the realms. This is a place where a person can be whatever they want to be, stunningly beautiful, amazing singer, have the guy of a girls' dream. But it is not all fun and games when Gemma if forced to leave her beloved Pippa behind and close them off to all magic forever. To add to her mix of confusion, she falls in love with an off limits, gypsie guy named Kartik, who is mysterious and handsome. Her drug addicted father does not help the matter and her over-the-top conservative brother only seems to make matters worse as she fights to find what is right and how to set her world right again.