This particular read caught me by surprise. While the very beginning of the book was quick to catch you and pull you in, the beginning-mid to the actual mid slowed down for me, but it was building the world and the characters in an amazing manner. Once the middle hit everything started falling into place. Character connections and revels started coming to light that completely flew over my head in the initial part of building the world until just the right moment when they connected and it just made you sit back and go "WOW, how did I not catch that" And that very last page, that reveal was so head turning and just mind blowing, I didn't know how to react.

The story didn't fall into the YA instalove nonsense and I could not be happier about that. The story focused on the actual STORY and wasn't a YA romance novel being disguised as fantasy. So many YA books fall to this and its frustrating so for this not do that is amazing. The relationships that are "present" are building slowly and naturally and that flows so much better with the story, but its not the focus.

The characters are all so well written, every character is like-able in their own way, expect for Val she gets negative points because she mean and rotten as hell. The character I liked most was Tristan, he started out as a hot head but then slowly his real personilty shown through and he was just a big sweetheart.

*Spoiler*
The way Tristan was written for handling the reveal of who Nyk really was, was amazing. I was so thankful the author did not go the route of making him turn into some mean, angry, unforgiving brute. He listened to Veronyka and he understood her reasons and why she did what she did, he didn't dismiss her or her concerns and he didn't make her feel bad about them. The aftermath of the reveal and how it was handled was so amazing and it just made Tristan's character even better for me.