Yeah... this fell flat for me in many ways. Opening up the POVs to multiple people throughout the story was lazy storytelling and character development for me. (Yes, I know all there were other POVs in The Beautiful but it was LIMITED). The plot picking up was fantastic throughout the narrative. However, the cliffhanger was not enough to make me seek the next book in the series quickly. I hate love triangles, so another strike against The Damned . I did love the angst and the drama. I needed more sexy vampireness going on in here. I did love the world expanding, it was good world-building. The supernatural politics was well laid out too. I had wrongly assumed this was a duology so when the plot was not wrapping up I was quite confused.