I was absolutely blown away by this book. After The Innocent Mage ended on such a massive cliffhanger, I couldn’t wait to sink my teeth into this and find out what happened to Gar and Asher and everyone else.

Whereas The Innocent Mage started off quite slowly, I didn’t have too many problems with the pacing of this book, although as I got about 2/3 of the way through, I did worry about how the author was going to fit in everything I wanted to happen.

I do feel that the book may have been better off as a trilogy, spending more time on the development of the magical backstory, and spending a bit more time with the characters after the epic finale. After all the drama of the last 200 pages, it did feel like it wrapped up a little too quickly.

Throughout the book, the main characters are put in peril but somehow always seem to end up coming out relatively unscathed, so I was quite surprised when Miller went a little ‘Game of Thrones-y’ at the end, killing off characters who I would never have thought would meet such a fate. I think I actually gasped a couple of times when I was reading, it was just so unexpected!

Having finished this book, I decided to look at the other reviews on Goodreads to see if everyone else was as surprised by the end as I was, but there seems to be an overwhelming glut of negative reviews. I have no idea how people can dislike this book so much, I thought it was gripping from front to back, and not as formulaic as some I have read.

There are three other books in the same series, but I believe these may be set before the two I’ve read. I’ll definitely be looking to pick those up and read them (as soon as I’ve cleared down my to-read pile a bit)!