Yup. Phenomenal follow-up. Better than the first, I'd say. All the rousing action, darkness, intrigue and romance as the first, with some added humor (thank you, Nsiri). It's been really interesting to see all the characters grow. Some, like Anhault and Cesare/Flay, you just love more and more. Some, like Kelvin and Mamoru, you enjoy the chance to understand from their POV, but also love to hate. And as for Clark, I hope he's gone for good, but somehow doubt it. Here's to hoping we get more of Nsiri's mother! And Selkirk's role (which I assume is not over yet), was the biggest tragedy to me - we'll see what happens to him now. This book is exactly what I wanted it to be after the first one - complete upkeep of the story without it getting old or overdone. Plus, the dialogue got better. As the plot thickens and the final conflict approaches, I cannot wait to see how everything is wrapped up in the last book!

*Revisiting after finishing the series - this was my favorite of the 3. Interesting, since usually I find the second to be more of a placeholder between start and finish, but the new characters introduced were fantastic and we don't get that in the third book. Plus, the relationship between A&G is both assured and still developing, whereas in the third one, it's almost too set to make it interesting any more. In any case, just an added thought in retrospect.