As with book 1 this is essentially a setup book for the final showdown in the 4th book. When betrayals happen they always go back to explain the motivations and why those they betrayed didn't see it coming. I enjoyed Thera's time with the Agon, Jia controlling the empire, and Zomi still figuring out how to deal with things. However I must bring up the food wars restaurant competition that happens about halfway through the book and you then proceed to spend like 75% of the rest of the book on this competition. All to get the characters involved in the specific places they need to be for the next book. Usually I am impressed by how things are weaved together like hey this person was the daughter of this person who left 20 years ago which led to her pursuing this dream which led to this character finding her, etc. etc. This time with the cooking competition I could only think about how while this is happening people are actively being tortured and it's all to lead to how they fight the Lycucu, but man. Wild way to go about it. Outside of that I still enjoyed the characters involved and their stories, I enjoyed the romance building up in it, and the last bit where things come to a close was also good. Just a huge middle part that had me scratching my head.