I love Celehar so desperately much, and I so wish he could see how much the people around HIM care for him as well. I want him nothing but happiness and I SO HOPE he finally sees that Pel-Thenhior is ALSO angling for more than just friendship with him (and his mom too!!! She yelled at him to not let you get away!!! Mom approves!!!)

They work so perfectly together, and while I know neither this nor the previous book really had any romance in it, I so wish there was if only so Celehar stops agonizing about whether Pel-Thenhior likes him and can see some of his own worthiness. I just love how dour and serious Celehar is and how sunshine Pel-Thenhior is and just how well they work together AND how much Pel-Thenhior LOVES how serious Celehar is (and he should, someone appreciate this man).

I could not get over Celehar having an ENTIRE internal monologue about pretending he has a lover with him who puts a lot of honey in their tea, and THEN HE GOES OUT TO TEA WITH PEL-THENHIOR AND HE DOES JUST THAT. I almost screamed, it was too perfect.

I also found the confusion of the names and titles less bad in this book, but that is probably just because it's easier for me to mentally skip over it and not lose the plot entirely. I liked this book almost more than the Goblin Emperor just because it was a fun murder mystery with a sad gay elf who does everything he can to help people and goes out of his way to do what's right, and yet CANNOT understand why people like him. He's great and I love him so much. (Not that I didn't enjoy the Goblin Emperor, but the name confusion got me a lot of the times when I was trying to read it and sometimes just skipping over it caused even MORE confusion.)