I... honestly really enjoyed this one! Which, I don't know why I was surprised, as I did net enjoy her Rifter series, but it was sooo long and very slow to build and to make sense, that I had no real idea what to expect for a stand-alone novel, but I thought it worked immensely well!

First off, the book is essentially divided into two novellas + a brief epilogue. While the second half of the book certainly built off the first, each half essentially has its own self-contained plot/case, and there's a bit of a time lapse between the two stories. The POV and tense also changes between the two halves. This was in no way a negative--I actually quite enjoyed it--but it really did read like two novellas, as opposed to one full-length novel.

The writing and world-building, as always, were fascinating, and I quite enjoyed the plot and the characters. Belimai and William were both very interesting (though I though Belimai was particularly captivating) and I very much enjoyed their interactions and the evolution of their relationship. A bit of a dark/bleak world here, as one would expect from Hale, though it didn't feel *quite* as gruesome and depressing as her Rifter world. Overall, quite an enjoyable read!