I missed the wonder of Trollus, and the political atmosphere and the players that I was finally getting used to from the first book. When the author brought in all these other characters from Trianon as political pieces, I winced. Any time you bring in a million different people, all with their own motivations, it becomes a slippery slope. And when your main characters spend most of their time trying to unravel the complicated mess of lies that accompanies political maneuvering, it can get boring. Thankfully, there was enough action to keep me reading, but this sequel lost something I can't quite put my finger on.

I felt as if the author was trying to mimic Game of Thrones, with enemies at all sides, our hero and heroine having to puzzle out who was on their side vs who was a tiny bit on their side, and Cecile was trying to learn more about her magic, but it all got lost in the search for Anushka, and I saw that 'twist' from a mile away. The more I think about it, more than a few of the plot points and directions the characters took make even less sense.

I'm going to stop now, before I remember more things I didn't like. :(