ok so this book was not working for me. i had read about the first half of it and was really surprised to find myself not loving it given how much i really did love k ancrum's other books. it felt more juvenile than her other stuff, less emotionally intense. but there's this moment, probably about 75% of the way through where everything made sense and my heart genuinely dropped out of my chest and i just felt this wave of nauseating horror wash over me. that sounds dramatic but i promise that's exactly what happened. i still feel like there were some choices in this book that kept it away from the five star mark but damn did that last act of the book really redeem the hell out of it for me what a ride