This book was dangerously close to be a 2 star but the author does endings/cliffhangers really well which once again saved the whole thing. 

This book and its predecessor are a problem simply because they have serious plot holes riddled throughout. Nothing really makes sense, they all make stupid decisions and the conflict is hanging together by a thread most of the time. 

Kiva is really unlikeable, naive, ungrateful and quite frankly quite boring. Jaren is a little better in that hes a nice guy type but theres no other depth to him. 
A lot of the other characters are a lot of filler and unnecessary irritants - heres looking at you Tipp - so could do with a cut down in that regard. 
I really liked Caldon as a character as he provided some much-needed banter among the drudgery of the rest of the text. 

The end as mentioned was the best part as the revelations were fun and the betrayal quite good.
I really hope that in the final instalment we are given answers quickly, or at least that Kiva can figure things out sooner by not being so dense.