4.5 stars

Dark Skies, book two of the Dark Shores series, by Danielle Jensen is a book I have been waiting to read since I turned the last page of Dark Shores. If you have not yet started this series, you definitely should. Please be warned, if you haven’t yet read book one, I don’t think I will spoil anything but you can’t hold it against me if I do.

This book runs somewhat parallel to the story in book one as this one focuses on Lydia and Killian and while at first I was all about getting more about Teriana and Marcus, Jensen made me quickly forget that line of thought and focus on these characters and I love where this story is going.

Lydia is Teriana’s best friend and she is briefly mentioned in Dark Shores, but we get her full story in this book and I loved her. Despite the fact that she’s grown up with an influential father, when Lydia when goes against the most powerful man in the Celendor Empire, she finds herself in Mudamora (nope – can’t / won’t tell you how). Unfortunately for Lydia, she ends up there in a really bad time for Mudamora…more to come about that.

Killian…I loved him. Having been Marked by the God of War, he is thought to be the one who will save Mudamora from the Corrupter and when the wall falls while he is in command and the armies invade, he finds himself in a situation where he has to rely on the crown princess to save him by having him swear his sword to her for life. This is not exactly the path Killian had in mind for himself but as he finds himself caught up in politics, he can’t stop thinking of the people and every night he goes out to do what he can to help whether that’s bringing food to orphans or saving a girl who happens to be wandering around after dark…which most know not to do.

From the moment Lydia and Killian met, I could feel the tension and the build of their relationship throughout this book was fantastically done. Lydia is in a foreign world and is desperate to get back to Celendor to help her father. Unfortunately with what is going on in Mudamora, she doesn’t have an easy solve and when she agrees to something that changes her in a big way, she finds that she has now put herself in a more dangerous position than she was before. I thought Lydia showed a lot of growth in this story. She faces a lot of tough decisions and she makes most of them based on the impact to those she loves no matter the danger she is in…all the way to the last page of the book.

The secondary characters in this book were interesting and helped to move the story along. I had so many mixed feelings about Malahi, Killian’s older brother, Hacken, needs to be punched, and I want to know more about Rufina and the Corruptor. I will be curious to see what happens next for all of these characters as well as those from book one. I am hoping they all begin to cross paths soon because of reasons.

That’s about all I can say about this book without ruining anything for anyone. Just trust me – you need to pick this one up and lucky for you, it comes out soon, so you don’t have to wait very long. If you’re looking for a series that has great characters, political intrigue, plenty of action, and swoony bits, this one is for you!

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the early copy in exchange for an honest review.