4.75 stars. Such a wonderful conclusion to this story. I am so glad the author wrote this as a duology instead of a trilogy. It kept the stakes high throughout the book and there was little to no filler. Coming up near the end of the book I thought I may have to knock a star off because it seemed as though certain subplots were going to be left unresolved, but in the end they were tied up in a satisfying manner. The one thread I thought could have been tied up that wasn't was the whole subplot with Artan's aunt. She extracted a favor from Khalid in return for her help in ending the curse, and said that his destroying the. lol would also help her family, but that wasn't really revisited after that point. Spinoff series??? I would totally be up for that!

I enjoyed the fleshing out of the characters who appeared in book one as minor characters -- Irsa, Rahim, even Tariq to a certain extent. I really liked Artan and the way that he interacted with Shahrzad and Khalid.

Another aspect I really enjoyed was the importance placed on storytelling, which was effective and not awkward at all. It seemed very organic to the narrative.


I will definitely be picking up other works by this author as they come out!