3.5 stars.

This is the second in a trilogy, but really can act as a standalone for the most part. Still, I recommend reading Cold the Night, Fast the Wolves if possible before diving in.

There was a lot to really like about this book, including a some great action sequences and some good character interactions. Like the first in the series, there is some fantastic world-building and the introduction to another interesting planet. The political ins-and-outs can get a little confusing now and again, but the overarching story is easy enough to follow.

Unfortunately, I got dragged down by the pacing and lost my steam a few times while reading. This resulted in read that took me nearly 2 months (I typically finish physical reads in 7-10 days). I didn't connect to the characters as well for whatever reason, and I struggled through the middle chunk of the novel. I temporarily soft DNFd and circled back to it after reading a few other things to see if it was just my mood at the time, but I still did have to power through for a bit. I will attribute some of this to second novel syndrome as this for some reason does happen a lot to the middle books of trilogies.

However...I will say that my interest in the series was amped back up again by the final 1/4 of the plot and I am definitely going to be reading the finale of the trilogy. This baby ends with a kick and I need to know how this is all going to work out in the end.