After finishing the First Empire Series (10/10) and attempting to read Rise and Fall (only made it to one book) I decided to pick up Crown Tower and finally get to know Hadrian and Royce, the two characters MJS's fanbase seems to love to the Earth and back.

I LOVED Hadrian from page one. In a world that could easily produce nothing but grim dark edge lords, this Lawful Good golden retriever of a human being is such a delight to read. Then there is Royce: the Neutral Evil, edge lord, "trust no one," brood brood, cry listening to butt-rock while standing on roof tops cause I think I'm Batman, generic DND Rogue backstory, and general recluse asshole of the series. I understand that he exists to be Hadrian's foil but he was really hard to like. His budding friendship near the end of the book makes putting up with this living gargoyle worth it though. And his character is actually really enjoyable once he pulls the stick out of his ass. I do think he is at his peek when he is actively bleeding out. He suddenly becomes a quippy on the level of Spider-man and actually starts talking to Hadrian like he is a person and not a total burden. What I am trying to say is that by the end of the book he was growing on me and I am definitely interested to see how Hadrian and Royces Grumpy/Sunshine fantasy romance plays out. Ugh, I mean. Bro-mance. Definitely.

Loved Gwen and her plot line. There honestly wasn't enough of her. There were times were I could give two shits about what the love birds were doing and just wanted to go back to the girls' plot line.

Looking forward to the next book.