I thought this was the final book of this series and yet it wasn’t, and it wasn’t needed. If I wanted to re-read the first book, I would have re-read the first book.  

This book is based on Cas and after the battle, the fighting has only just begun. Gods are awakening across Iliseeum and the mortal realm, readying for the war to come. But when Poppy falls into stasis, Cas faces the very real possibility that the dire, unexpected consequences of what she is becoming could take her away from him. Cas is given some advice though – something he plans to cling to as he waits to see her beautiful eyes open once more: Talk to her. And so, he does. He reminds Poppy how their journey began, revealing things about himself that only Kieran knew in the process. But it’s anyone’s guess when she’ll wake or how much of the realm and Cas will have changed when she does. 

This book just wasn’t needed in the slightest, the author could have cut down the first book and do it as dual POV, but my patience with this series is getting thinner and thinner. I was hoping this would be the end, but it was a complete money-grab. It was like the author was being pushed by her manager, editor someone from her team to get a book out from this series in 2023 and she found a draft or an early idea of making the first book with either dual POV or with Cas’s point of view and decided to run with it whilst Poppy is asleep and threatening memory loss. However, we don’t have memory loss, so I didn’t care for it. I didn’t particularly enjoy the first book from Poppy’s point of view never mind Cas’s. From the twelve chapters that we get in the present, it is just Cas and Kieran being concerned for Poppy and being like “hahaha yeah you remember that”, i thought she was going to kill me and things like that. We don’t find out any new information or if Poppy will remember everything.  

This book felt like a way to justify things that had happened in the series so far because why on earth was Cas watching Kieran having sex with another girl at the Red Pearl and then being so defensive if someone even looks at Poppy the wrong way but was imagining and wanting Kieran to have sex with her before he did. I feel so bad for Kieran and just want him to have his own heartmate instead of being a plaything to Cas and Poppy.  

This series will end well, if they all die besides Kieran and Tawny.