Published By: Bloomsbury Archer
Pages: 384
Released On: 13/08/2026
Once a spy for the ruthless King Illian, Vasalie sacrificed herself to kill him and prevent a prophesied war.
But Illian’s brother, Anton – the king she allied with and had only just begun to love – struck a deal with the goddess of the underworld, to bring Vasalie back. The cost: his compassion, his memories of her, and all the events of the past six weeks.
Now stripped of the truth, Anton believes his friends betrayed him and accepts an offer from the goddess to rule the kingdom of the dead. But with the realm he leaves behind on the brink of civil war, and her cruel father threatening to invade, Vasalie realizes only Anton can reunite a fractured realm.
To save her world and the man she was coming to love, Vasalie journeys to the underworld and reclaim him… though the Anton she finds is arrogant, debauched, hopeless. To restore him, she’ll have to restore his memories – even if it means sacrificing her own heart.
*****
Thanks to NetGalley and Bloomsbury Archer for the advanced copy of this title in return for an honest review.
I only recently read the first book and whilst it wasn’t absolutely perfect in my eyes (it got better as it went along) I was immediately lost in this world and was so happy I already had this copy of the sequel to go straight into.
Aaaaaaand once again there’s a map!
It’s very much a definition of a slow burn, which some people will like and others will feel impatient about.
She has put a “book one recap” at the start, and for that she gets my gratitude. I can’t tell you the amount of times I’ve gone into a book – especially if it’s been a long time since I read the one previous – and found myself completely lost with who was who and what was going on, and I’ve always advocated for authors just to write a few lines reminding us, so that immediately gets a gold star.
I was assuming it would end up all happily-ever-after (no spoilers as to whether it did or not) and because I’d invested so much in these characters, I was so impatient, just needing to know how it ended!
What’s weird is that the first book didn’t feel very “romantasy”. I mean yes, there’s romance and it is in a fantasy world. But I’m used to romantasy being about magic dragon and whatnot, which this didn’t have. So I was hoping I’d feel it more in this sequel. Once again, it didn’t have the familiar romantasy tropes (i.e. dragons) but it definitely felt more in the fantasy world.
She has kept the tension and the secrecy. I mean, I’m famously terrible at working out where books are going, no matter the genre. And normally that annoys me because I try so hard. But I actually enjoyed that I didn’t know where this was going. I knew where I wanted it to go but I was never quite sure.
I’m always a bit iffy with duologies because I feel a story should either be one book, or a series; two books for me always seems a bit weird. Like, could it not have been published just in one long novel? But it worked in this. It allows you to sit with it at the end of the first one, whetting your appetite for the sequel. And I think if it had been any longer it would have been too stretched out, and if it was shorter then it would have had to remove so much of the content.
There is particular thing about it that I did feel negatively about. Not enough to really spoil the reading of it but enough to note. The first one, whilst you had your main characters, there was a wonderful cast of supporting characters that worked so well and gave you so much to enjoy. But with this one, that secondary cast are more like background characters and don’t quite get the same attention that I wish they had. This is particularly evident in the middle of the book which focusses almost solely on Anton and Vasalie, which is fine, it’s good to read about them, but I did feel the absence of some of the other characters.
The pacing was a bit off. The first 20% or so was really engaging, and the ending was great. But for a good chunk of the middle it was very samey and not much happened, so it felt a bit slow getting through that bit, but the ending did make up for it.
It’s not necessarily a negative but something I kept thinking about. I love that she’s made the main character have a form of chronic illness because representation is important. But for the most part, it’s almost like it doesn’t matter how unwell she is, if she can believe it enough, she can push through. I know it’s fantasy so it doesn’t necessarily have to make sense, but it paints this picture that a chronic illness or disability can be ignored if you believe enough, which sort of negates the positive representation
If I am being harsh, I’d probably give this a 3.75 stars out of 5. I enjoyed it but not as much as the first one and I gave that 4 stars.
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