I adored this book! definitely my favourite out of this series so far. Istvan and Clara are also contenders for favourite characters and their dynamic is just so fun. Two giant strong warriors who can't seem to stop pinning eachother against walls? sign me up. 

The plot of this book is also amazing, there's so many moving parts and they fit together beautifully. I was so invested in everything going on and the climax at the gladitor ring was so satisfying. And the emotional arcs pay off so well too. Action, emotions and romance all done perfectly. It builds off the smooth man arc from the first book perfectly and takes it to a whole other scale, Clara has her own motivation and place in the narrative and feels feels like an equal to Istvan in both the romance and action plots. 

This book was an epic and I cannot praise its plot, world building and characters enough. I want to play through it as a dnd campaign. The additions to the lore are wonderful: the overrun white rat temple contrasts the calm hold of the one in Archons Glory, the creator of the smooth men is a tragic character who will stick in my mind for a while and the werenuns?? simply too good to ignore. 

my only complaint is the ending is unclear where Clara and Istvan will go the other books in this series have epilogues and I would have liked one just to see how they manage their relationship between their other commitments and the distance between their peers. I'm sure we'll get hints to this in other books though.