I would like to thank the publisher, Netgalley, and the author for the ARC of this book. I read an advanced copy of this book, so the final edition of the book might be slightly different. All thoughts and opinions are my own, as always. This review also contains some spoilers for the first book.

A Marvellous Light was one of my favorite reads of 2021, and I loved it just as much when I went back to reread it before finally continuing the series. A Restless Truth is the second book in The Last Binding trilogy and follows Maud (Robin’s sister) and Violet instead. Sometimes it can be difficult to lose narrators, especially when I loved them as much as I loved Robin and Edwin, but I do think the switching helped the series! I generally enjoyed getting to see a new romantic and character focus for each installment, but with a strong central plot connecting all three books together.

Maud and Violet were unfortunately not my favorites though. I found them interesting as characters individually, and I enjoyed seeing their backgrounds and relationships with their femininity and how it shaped them in this society. However, I wasn’t super convinced by their romance and didn’t care for that subplot as much, even though Robin and Edwin’s romance was what carried the first book for me. It’s hard to explain or pin down, but I just didn’t like them together. It made some parts of the book more frustrating for me, especially when it started getting in the way of plot progression.

In terms of plot, I  found it intriguing, but I felt like the reliance on Robin’s visions made everything seem too pre-planned. It felt like Maud was just following a blueprint and trying to make certain things happen, and I felt like the characters lost a lot of their agency in this one. I have since read book 3, A Power Unbound, and didn’t have this issue in that book though, so it was just an issue unique to this book, luckily. It might just have been the way Maud used and interacted with the visions that made it not work for me.

Overall, I still enjoyed this book and really liked the audiobook narrator’s performance for this one. I think I would’ve felt this book's weaknesses even more had I not had the narrator helping me connect with the characters more. I do still love this series, but this is unfortunately the weakest installment for me!