I was very happy to pick up this standalone. I’ve been reading a lot of series recently and it can get overwhelming to be reading so many at a time sometimes. Reading this was a lot of fun. It is reasonably fast paced and leaves you wanting to keep turning pages because it does a great job of building up intrigue about what will happen next. Alessandra and the Shadow King are interesting morally ambiguous main characters that grab your attention the moment they are on the page. They also end up being very well-matched love interests. Alessandra is set on murdering the Shadow King to gain power initially and most of her decisions in the story are driven by this goal. She is a complex character that has had people in her life look down upon her including her father and her first lover. We quickly find out at the beginning of the book that her first lover humiliated her, so she murdered him. It’s very telling of the kind of person Alessandra is and we get to learn a lot about her in the span of a few pages. As she gets to know the Shadow King, she begins to learn that just as she does not like letting people get close to her out of fear of being hurt, the Shadow King has similar reasons for keeping his distance. They have a lot more in common than either of them initially thinks and the journey we see them go through as they develop feelings for each other is amazing. 

There is a lot of commentary within the story about the differences in societal expectations of men and women and the magic in the world adds flavor to an already interesting story. I also highly enjoyed the romance. Alessandra throughout her entire life has had to play a part in order to get what she wants from others and with the Shadow King the relationship develops in a way that he is fully accepting of who she truly is, secrets, crimes, and all. They both open up to each other emotionally in ways that they haven’t done with others and it shows a very sincere relationship dynamic. Overall, if you’re looking for characters that are intelligent, cunning, and morally ambiguous and a plot driven by intrigue with a good romance, this is a good pick.