No shade to those who loved this book as a sequel to Her Majesty's Royal Coven, I respect and appreciate the high reviews this has! That being said, the issues I found with the pacing and characters just made me struggle to connect with the story. 

Spoilers ahead!

I struggled with Leonie's storyline. A lot. She was my favourite character in the last book, but here it feels lie she's thrown into situations without any real thought behind it - she didn't get any chance to explore some of the themes she was presented with. There's a brush with slavery that doesn't get as much weight as I think was deserved. She finds a safe haven for witches that was just a stop along the way and so easily overthrown. 

A lot of the plotlines in the story feel rushed or surface-level. People grieve for Niamh but nowhere near as much as I would have expected when a lifelong friend is ousted to be dead and her sister possesses her body. There was more of a reaction to the Priest's death. Theo wasn't given the agency I would have liked to see from her, and her relationships, even with the end plot twist, just fell short of letting me care, we spent so much time with Ciara that the other characters and their struggles just felt like distractions upping the page number. Maybe if all of the stories were more obviously interconnected throughout rather than just at the very end.

Don't get me wrong, I genuinely liked Ciara's dilemma, her climax was great - but at the expense of Hale? He'd been built up so much, it felt like such a slap in the face for him to be taken care of so suddenly. I don't know, there was just so much happening and most of it felt like it wasn't going anywhere which took me out of the events.