A Dance of Lies

Why Rebecca? Why?

I can't form the words. Thom continues to be the ultimate baby girl, but I don't think I can forgive Crunden for Kitty. SHE'S SUFFERED ENOUGH.

I'm a little scared to read the finale, if they don't get their happy endings I don't think I could take it. 

–>I received a free copy of this in exchange for an honest review.
After a flashback to Blaise to fill in some backstory on him, we are back to the three main characters, Kitty, Nate, and Thom navigating their new lives in the Outlands. The group tensions that the third book ended with are still there, threatening to tear the community apart...

We really hit the breaks and slow down the main story on this one. As the group argues and debates, argues mostly, on what to do about going back to the Kingdom or staying out of it for good. The drama this causes takes up a lot of the story, and the constant back and forth fighting and making up wore me down quite a bit. I like the characters, I really do. But this stuff irritates me to no end, they really just need to get over things sometimes. This one takes a long time to get rolling because of this, and finally, when they are attacked we get to some fun bits again.

The group is still living in constant worry about the Radiant outcasts attacking them. They hunt them everywhere they go and they do battle with Quen quite a bit throughout the story, who makes for a good and menacing villain.

And of course, with this taking place in the Outlands, we get a lot of lore in between the constant group bickering. I enjoy the Outlands and the descriptions of scenery always so it is still an enjoyable entry despite the drama. Outside of the characters and their relationships, this one is mostly about filling in everything about the Outlands and we learn even more about the Radiant's culture.

Since the story is slowed down so much, we get to see a lot more about all the many side characters. Riddle especially gets a lot of character work and is a great character. All the characters find themselves changing and their relationships are tested and changed too. As this is told from Kitty's perspective, we follow her as she trains as a warrior and deals with the two brothers' frustrating bond.

There is also a lot of action, just spaced out a bit. The battles with the Outcasts as I mentioned earlier are bloody and intense. The main group fights a lot too, and not just in arguments, a lot of fistfights break out in this one.

This book mostly felt like a huge set up for the inevitable returning to the kingdom and rebellion that we've been waiting for since they hopped the wall in the first place. The characters are well developed and established at this point so often I just found myself waiting for the other shoe to drop so to speak and for things to happen.

Seeing how they lived in the Outlands in great detail was well done and the action that eventually came was awesome. The characters fight simply way too much, but I do enjoy seeing how far they've all come from book one. Everything that has happened from the beginning plays a part in how this one ends and sets the stage for a huge showdown in the final upcoming book.