I wanted to love this book much more than I did. Still a solid read for me, but it felt like two books smushed together rather than a single cohesive storyline.

For me, the true power couple of book one was Elspeth and the Nightmare and that dynamic being barely present was a huge loss for me.

Unlike some, I didn’t dislike the romance in this book, but it did very much feel out of left field and didn’t really allow me the satisfaction of the slow burn in ODW. I’m not really a fan of the insta-romance and this sort of felt a little like that. I get what we were trying to do here, but it fell flat for me.

Ditto the pacing. Too many POV and too much chopping and changing between story arcs. I understand why Elm was important, but the main characters from book 1 were almost entirely sidelined.

This was almost a 3* read for me but the last 20% of the book absolutely salvaged it. The prose was still gorgeous and I continue to love the magical system.

“The two were together so the two were the same. The girl, the king, and the monster they became.”