An exciting and thrilling book with painfully slow pacing, but an incredible ending that made it worth it.

The first 70% of this book is mostly the characters preparing for the Essen Tach. We get to see what everyone has been doing since the end of the first book, and we meet some new characters who were interesting enough, but it didn't feel like much of it actually moved the story forward.

The Essen Tach is the main event of the book, but because so much time is spent preparing for it, a lot of the book ended up feeling like filler.

And then there's whatever the fuck is going on between Kell and Lila. It takes them over 80% of the book to finally meet again.

Once the tournament actually begins, things get much more interesting. The fight scenes were really well written, and the descriptions of the magic made it easy to visualize what was happening.

And then there's the ending.

A girl named Ijka, whom Kell has never met before, approaches him. He immediately notices her black eye and realizes she's not an Antari, so he knows something is obviously wrong with her. And yet, despite all those warning signs, he decides to follow her anyway.

And now he's trapped, Rhy's life is on the line, and Red London could potentially be doomed.

Yeah... a lot happened in that last chapter.

Overall, I enjoyed this book, but the pacing was a major problem for me. If you loved A Darker Shade of Magic, I'd still recommend continuing with this series, but be prepared for a much slower book. Thankfully, that ending made all the waiting feel worth it.

3.75 stars.