Well, I had hope... The narrative here was at least more interesting and dynamic, I'll give it that. But, many of the same problems prevalent in the first book are, perhaps unsurprisingly, still present here. That, in addition to the loss of any pretense of nuance in the characters and conflicts. (A smaller thing, too: I found it kind of icky that Elwyna gets so jealous over the guys sleeping with other women but not other men.)