I liked this book a tad less than the first and once again took me a bit to get into the flow of. I have to say my love of the main characters really took a dive in this book. I specifically took a huge issue with Xaden and the dynamic of not disclosing things to Violet unless she asked. In some cases, like

his second signet

, I could understand because

it’s literally life or death

. It was hard for me to come back from

him never being fully truthful about Cat

. I had a lot of ups and downs with this book. Overall I felt like this book lacked the same punch as the first one did, but damn does Rebecca Yarros know how to hit us with a good cliffhanger.