Previous book here.
Loving this book. The plot of it sounds fairly simple and mostly revolves around Maeven's new scheme to force Leo and Gemma to get married by forcing him to go through "The Gauntlet", some kind of historical Unger* ritual thing. Gemma is conflicted AF between "I've had feelings for this guy since like age 12" and "Oh dear god, his mother and older brother are fucking eeeeeeeeevil murderers." Would you want to marry into the Morricones? Heck no. And of course there's a bunch of murder scheming going on with Milo and his fiancee and her secret boyfriend, and god only knows what Maeven's up to, but Gemma doesn't want to marry Leo if Maeven is in favor of it. That can't be good, right?
- Y'know what, I think the author needs to write some books on the Ungers, because man, do they ever have a weird/unusual/very forceful and stringent culture. Xenia needs a book/prequel, something, in particular.
Anyway, this book has a lot of cool plot developments, moments of adorable, and hot sex.
- I continue to love the use of the sentient liladorn plant. That's really cool.
- Gemma's dead mother was a time magier, and she ends up factoring into the plot in some really cool ways.
- Gemma and Leo are ADORABLE, and the gifts section of the book in particular is full of "awwww."
- There is a baby strix named Violet who loves gargoyles at first sight AND IT'S THE CUTEST THING EVER I WANT ONE.
- Gemma and Maeven's "it's complicated" relationship continues to develop. Gemma can't bring herself to let Maeven die when the opportunity arises, and Maeven admits to having her own "it's complicated" relationship with Gemma's mom back in the day.
- I love the foreshadowing/past plot development setups in this one.
It's hard for me not to spoiler this, because I love it so. I probably said more than I should, but screw it. Four and a half stars.
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