Wow, that was quite a ride!
Without knowing much about this series I had taken book 1 at “face value” and seen it is a complex and powerful story with the romance between Feyre and Tamlin at its heart and their eventual union as the happy ending everyone deserved. So to come to this second book and have everything that we thought was true turned on its head was really something, especially as we can see the hints that were planted in the first book.
I’d be fascinated to know how far in advance Ms. Maas had planned this series - whether this was the intention all along or if there has been some really clever ret-conning going on.
I don’t want to give too many spoilers - I realise that these books have been out for some years now but I’m enjoying coming on them with no foreknowledge and wouldn’t want to deprive anyone else of the pleasure of surprise. Although it is helpful that much discussion is already out there as ChatGPT provided me with an excellent summary of book 1 to refresh my memory prior to starting book 2.
So, no spoilers but this books takes us a long way from the first and we visit (sometimes quite briefly) the other courts, in particular the Court of Night which turns out to be a very special place - lots of YouTube videos with Verlaris images and atmosphere that I’ve really enjoyed and found enhanced the reading experience. There’s a lot of passion, a lot of action and, something that surprised me, a great deal of pain in this book, deep pain from the long history of Prythia, recent pain from the conflict with Amarantha and current pain of separation, loss, and not knowing your place in the world. There isn’t a character here who doesn’t have sorrow in their heart.
Really enjoyed this book and I’ve already started book 3 and hoping to get through all the set at exactly the right time for the paperback of volume 8 to be available!