If you haven’t read book 1 in a while, I highly recommend skimming or reading it again before picking this up, as there’s no recap and little to remind you of what’s happened thus far in the story.
The book has plenty of adventure. There’s the hunt, several dramatic fight scenes, and more magical experimentation. We get to learn more about the world, looking at Leech and Skakmaht. The skinchangers and their form of changeling magic was fascinating, especially how their explanation of the world was subtly different from that of the humans.
I was a bit disappointed by some of the characters who had very small rolls. Makkovian and Datu only show up in a few chapters and Lir is mostly forgotten. I did appreciate that Makkovian has his own quest to perform, showing his life isn’t on hold while Lanie is off doing her thing.
The middle of the book felt a bit slow. There’s a lot of great action and fun new world building and then things sort of pause for a while.
I thought the last third of the book, in Skakmaht, was fantastic. Learning more about the sky houses and the wizard magic was very interesting. I also thought the book had a fitting conclusion.
If you liked the first book this one builds on what was accomplished and fleshes out more of the wider world. Lanie keeps learning new ways of using her necromantic powers, and grows as a person. It’s a worthy conclusion.