When I started reading this book, I thought Oh no, maybe the first one wasn't as good as I thought it was. I actually stopped listening to it for a week and read some other books instead. Coming into it after a binge on romance/new adult definitely impacted my ability to reconnect with this story.
Just as with book 1, there is a lot going on in this story. You have Mikhail who is still not who everyone thinks he is, although he does not seem to be talking to himself nearly as much as before. Ben and his mad lancers are wrecking havoc across the land at the behest of Lady Flint. The Redhand is attempting to locate the god stones to keep them from everyone else. Lady Flint continues to fight with her army even though both sides of the war now have a price on her head.
What I really liked:
Ben's continuing growth. He goes through a lot in this installment and finds out things about himself that are startling and make him question everything.
Two shot and Valora find themselves on a mission together and everything goes to shit rather spectacularly. One ends up in jail and the other cannot be inconspicuous. I found this part of the story funny and I enjoyed seeing the two of them hesitantly work together.
Valora makes a decision that is going to cost her a lot in the next book. Someone is going to be very angry at her.
Car pol, there is so much more to her that is threaded throughout this story.
The battles.

Once I got into this story again, it was excellent. There is so much gong on that is hard to keep all of the threads straight but the author is a master at weaving all of these threads together. I love the characters and how they are continually in impossible situations that they somehow come out of. And it is all believable. You think they are done for and yet when they extricate themselves, it's not in some far fetched kind of way.
I can't wait to find out what happens in the next book and am so glad that I didn't give up on this book.