I have a love/hate relationship with this new installment of my favorite book series.
As we all know I am obsessed with all the books previous to this one however, this one seemed to fall just a bit flat for me.

It felt simultaneously too rushed and too slow at times. There were so many new characters all thrown at me at once, and barely anything of our old loved characters. I did actually like the new characters quite a bit though and the first couple of chapters after I got myself into a little bit of a rhythm with them but then they dropped out of the book until the end and we only heard from Elloren.
I guess it almost felt like Laurie wanted all these cool new characters and their information to be present but then wasn't sure how to add them in so they were just stuck in for this book so we know them and then maybe we'll explore them more in the next book? I guess I just wish that we got introduced to them a bit more and got to spend more time with them and their budding relationships with the people we already care about. The characters all seemed super cool but we had barely any time with them. I have said this before and will forever say this when it comes to books, I would much rather have more book with more information than fewer books and have things rushed.
As an Elloren and Yvan shipper, this installment obviously was not my favorite in terms of romance. I thought that sending Elloren back to the Grey's was a bad idea from the get-go. I just wasn't sure how Lukas was supposed to help her, especially not when everything she's done up to this point would obviously be viewed as terrible form the Gardnerians POV. I am 0% shocked that Vogel found out, I mean she was literally in his hands the whole time...
Elloren even said, hey I can feel his magic, he can probably feel mine and Lukas was kind of like nah, you're good, I'm here.
And again with romance...didn't Elloren already choose Yvan? Didn't we solidify their relationship in the last book, she's literally is bound to Yvan. I also feel like Lukas is just so all of a sudden a rebel, he was so low-key about everything in the last book and definitely not in the first book it just feels so instant in this book and it feels driven by his love for Elloren rather than a hatred for Vogel (which is what it should be).
Another thing about Elloren...wasn't she all bad-ass and ready to fight at the end of the last book. She seemed pretty ready and willing then but this whole book was just a lot of Lukas saving her and her complaining, and then Lukas telling her to stop complaining and her complaining about him telling her to stop...and then sex...

I might add more thoughts later but this is where I leave it for now. I'm just a little disappointed as a presentation I guess is the best way to describe it. I still love Laurie's writing style and magic systems in general.

Hopefully, the next book will redeem itself and bring this series back up to the 5-star status given for the other books. This would've been three stars if I didn't love this series overall so much.