I wanted to love this so badly and kept hoping I would find the magic Orbit authors usually make with their worlds. Unfortunately, even as I finish it I can’t help but feel like it was just ok.

Although beautifully written in theory, i found the purple prose a bit of an eye roll. If it had grown in line with

Fia growing her greenmark and finding out about her connection to the forest

, I think that would have made sense and been a fantastic literary device. 

Ultimately, it’s not BAD, just not as captivating as I had hoped. 

I’m going to pretend this is a standalone. It ended on such a wistful note that a sequel is wholly unnecessary. Let standalones exist!!!