Leila is reviewing her relationship with Vlad and is
concerned. She doesn’t know where it’s going, she doesn’t know whether he’s
tiring of her like he has so many others and, ultimately, she doesn’t know if
she’s going to be happy. Increasingly as the days pass and Vlad racks up one
faux pas too many, it seems the answer is that she’s not going to be. He is not
going to return the same depth of love se feels for him – and seems closed to
the very idea.
So she leaves before getting any more hurt.
And then someone tries to kill her.
Presumed dead, she needs to find out who tried to kill
her, who is hunting her and stop them to protect herself and her family. But
she also needs to know why. Is it her enemy? Is it Vlad’s? Or is it… Vlad himself,
motivated by his overwhelming pride and unwilling to swallow the insult of her
leaving? Which leaves her with terrible choices of who to trust.
I was impressed almost from the beginning by the writing
of this book. After all, this isn’t just the second book of a series, this is a
book that rests on the Night Huntress series of world building. The temptation to
infodump is very very high. But it’s not only masterfully resisted – but the
world is wonderfully presented. Little side references like Leila being careful
not to fry the shower, her immunity to fire and how that relates to Vlad’s
power, her thinking back to the last time she was kidnapped – it all serves
extremely well to fill in the past story without us ever once having an info
dump or a convoluted moment or a great, big, clunky “as you know… let me
explain the plot to you”. The past is explained – but it’s a reminder for a
reader who hasn’t read for a while, not an attempt to re-tell the whole book.
And the story itself flows well. It’s wonderfully focused
on just one storyline, side issues crop up now and then to each side, there are
issues and distractions, but they’re brief and more re-direct the main story
than they mini storylines in their own right. The protagonists act in a
sensible and realistic fashion, there’s a lot of real emotion, a lot of
realness and lot of believability. And not once did I want to lay about the
characters with a large haddock for their sheer foolishness. Everything’s just so well balanced – enough mystery
to intrigue, but not so much that it’s lost and hopeless. Enough questions to
stop it being linear without becoming distracted. Enough action to be exciting
without it being a slog of battles and enough capability from Leila for her to
seem competent and strong without her seeming ridiculously perfect and
overpowered. All the conflicts were real, both against the enemy and Leila and
Vlad’s emotional conflicts, nothing seemed convoluted, nothing seem contrived.
It all worked
