Another solid entry in the series. All the things I liked about the first book are still true. Unfortunately, all the bits that annoyed me are also still true.

Particularly, the switching between viewpoint characters. Although, my main objection there is one viewpoint character is Amara who I find really tiresome. Amara is a Cursor. Cursor's are officially the messengers for the First Lord of Alera, while in reality they are Alera's equivalent of MI5. She is meant to be one of their best and brightest, yet she spends what seems to me to be an inordinate amount of time standing around wringing her hands and feeling/being helpless.