You can see all my reviews here: Books Are The New Black

I can’t believe this has been sitting on my book shelf for so long. I’m glad I finally got to it because it was so good.

This was a great sequel to City of Brass. It does take place 5 years after the first book. I was kind of skeptical about that time jump. I feel like we missed a lot of things that I would have loved to explore. The pacing was a bit slow in the beginning. There’s a lot going on but it felt like it took forever to actually get somewhere. I never felt bored but I might have just been missing Dara + Nahri together. Half way through though, it really picked up the intensity!


We get 3 different POV’s and they are all crucial to the plot. This book felt really different than the fist book, especially with the 5 year time jump. Nahri is in Daevabad trying to stay alive. She’s trapped in a marriage (noooo) and healing everyone she can. This book is heavy on the politics and she’s pretty much in the center of it. She’s trying to unite everyone, which is not an easy task. Dara is on a totally different path than he was previously. It’s interesting to learn more about him. Ali’s story line was so good. We have so much political intrigue, intense family dynamics, and a lot of morally gray areas. We start to see that the line between good and bad is a bit blurry.


Nahri is still the same badass woman that she was in the first book. I love her so much. She is in a terrible marriage and the king is watching her like a hawk. She’s spending all her time healing people but she wants more. She wants to bring everyone together and she gets so much resistance. She’s playing a game but she is SO good at it.

“Maybe one day your people will have me as their leader.”

Ali– I loved his story line in this book. He’s basically trying to make a life for himself and avoid being killed. He’s learning something new about himself and trying to figure out what it means. He has come such a long way and stepping up for justice. He’s not as naive and really just wants to help people, all people. Of course, you feel for him because you know that he just wants his dad’s love and approval and that’s pretty much impossible! He’s got a really tough rode but I loved seeing him embrace who he is and what he believes in.

Dara– We do learn more about Dara and his past. Although, his chapters were not my favorite (gasp) by any means. I am glad to finally see him grow a bit though. We see him start to question things but I wish he would have had more actions behind them.

There are soo many characters that I loved in this book! I really loved Ali’s mom and sister. They added so much to this book.

“You don’t stop fighting a war just because you’re losing battles, Alizayd. You change tactics.”

Overall, I had such a great time with this book and it really set up for a pretty epic finale, I hope! I loved seeing these characters really come into their own. Chakraborty covered some heavy topics and really knew how to punch me right in the heartstrings. The ending of this book is phenomenal! Of course, the world building was amazing and I cannot wait to read the last book!