When I started this I was fully expecting this book to suffer the fate of dragging along the plot. You can tell its primary objective is to move things in place; sometimes too fast, and sometimes spending a little too slow and long on Mal and Alina’s communication issues. But you can also see the breadcrumbs she drops for the later duologies that make reading this series out of order a bittersweet experience. 

In many ways this book is an obvious sophomore, outside of one particular trait Bardugo has honed into mastery. She does a fantastic job of lulling you into complacency, and then hits you over the head until you’re reading with your jaw hanging open. Which is 100% what she did in the last freaking 30 pages of Siege and Storm. I’ll leave you with this…

And Genya, sweet Genya. The horror that was done to you, my heart is broken. 

“He left me in the dark.”