I feel as though this book has gotten a lot of chatter with my mutuals on Insta so when I saw that ARC had become available again, I knew that I wanted to grab the opportunity.

I am honestly not totally sure how I am feeling about this book. I didn’t realise that it wasn’t going to be a standalone which obviously impacts the lens through which you interpret the story from a pacing perspective. I did think there were some things that felt kind of anachronistic or at least dragged me out of the story; for some reason, the main character’s constant smoking felt really annoying and I think a substantial part of that was the fact that I didn’t understand what it added to the story? I did get a feeling like this author was probably a big fan of Sarah J Maas and that bled through into the story so that it just had an overall ACOTAR vibe. This is a very unique story with a somewhat rich lore wholly its own but there were certain interactions that felt kind of familiar.

I am intrigued to see where the series takes us since there is an implication that Baylis may have been playing a long game and was working with Gideon all along. I am hopeful that we will get a lot more of Aelia and Tharan together because I didn’t love her with Caiden whilst Tharan just sizzles. I think that is also a feeling of Tharan having a lot more to offer her and genuinely feeling like he would always have her back.

Ultimately, I think this is a book that took a minute to come up to temperature but by the time I got to the end of the book, I was absolutely gasping for more.