What a great second book! We're given new characters that are just as vibrant as book one, and the plot really picks up. The beginning can be a little frustrating/disorienting as you get used to who is who, but it is quickly intriguing. It's obvious that the plot was clearly laid out from the inception of these books because of its intricacies. Some people may be frustrated with the lack of Kai in this one, and it is more gory than book one. Sometimes the new characters can be a bit toxic, but it also makes them interesting.

I do not factor audiobook narrators' performances into in my overall star rating of a book, but I would give Rebecca Soler a 4.5/5. She did better with this one than the last, with a bit more variance in her emotion, although it still drones or falls flat in parts. Her accents were quite good, actually allowing me to know who was talking when. However, I started to wonder why Scarlet has a French accent (typically, though sometimes Soler forgets to use it) but Kai, for instance, has an American one even though he lives in New Beijing.