Magic is illegal. But as always seems to be the case, exceptions are made for the rich and powerful. The Nightbirds - a group of masked girls - have magical gifts that they can pass on to others (but not themselves or each other as was the case with the fabled Firebirds) with a kiss. But as the fight against magic grows stronger, they find themselves increasingly at risk and start to lean more about their powers and magic in general.

I had such high hopes for this book. While I did enjoy the plot, I have to say that the characters were largely a let down. While they did all have their defining events, they felt a bit samey and at times I struggled to keep track of which plot belonged to which girl. They all had similar tones and with all the jumping around between points of view it was difficult to pin down personalities. They all just kind of merged into each other. I often felt like the settings had more personality than the actual characters. Which is unfortunate since the relationships between the characters are so important to the storyline.  Fenlin felt the most distinctive to me and is probably the only truly memorable character. It's been a couple of days since I finished the book and she's the only one I really remember. Everyone else is a blur. That's because she was so separate from how the rest of the world works.  I often felt a little lost, although the world kept me just interested enough to keep going.  That being said, I definitely started to enjoy it more towards the end when plots started converging a bit more and the events started being more about the group rather than individuals. It definitely got a bit more coherent at this point. I did kind of forsee quite a few of the plot points though.

I don't think I will be continuing this series as it fell a bit too short of what it should have been, especially because f the characters. I hope that others have better luck with this book than I did.