Shachar Haad

TL;DR: A noticeable improvement over the last book.

There are people and interactions where you see the merging of cultures, relationship building, and the plot being formed.

While the last book was somewhat of a slog to go through, this was a breeze. The characters were compelling, and the relationships were interesting, and even Farrendel has dialogue, and we see his point of view.

The ending came to me so abruptly (even though I suspected that this was how the book was going to end), and I immediately started book 3. Unfortunately, there was no setup in the previous book, and a reader could start with War Bound with a blurb of what happened without missing anything substantial.

TL;DR: Not enough substance. Repetition galore.

Several times, I nearly DNF'd the book, as most of it is extremely tedious, with excessive repetition, little action, and too much monologuing, accompanied by minimal dialogue between characters. Apart from the FMC, I know nothing about any of the other characters.

For most of the book, Essie is repeating the same thoughts and feelings over and over, without breaks for side character development, without her romantic interest saying anything, and most of what does happen seem pointless. The book could have been a third of what it is currently, and nothing would have been lost; this seems to be a problem with the book being part of the series, trying to create multi-book suspense romance, but with nothing much to say for more than one book. Maybe if Grayce distilled the first three books into one book, it would have fixed the pacing and plot.

Will I read the next book? Maybe in the future but if the writing remains as it is in this book, I'll almost certainly drop it.