This is an interesting fast paced novel with a tongue in cheek writing style, a spunky female character and a hint of romance that doesn’t over power the main narrative. Officially this therefore ticks nearly every box that I’m interested in, but it didn’t quite do it for me. I realised after finishing this that it’s a spin off series, and that may be the reason why the world building and characters seemed somewhat lacking; the author anticipates that you will have read the other series and already be familiar with the world and individuals. Unfortunately, that was not the case and I felt that there was a lot unexplained and unexplored, relationships assumed and character backgrounds known.

Split into two perspectives, Max gets the bulk of the page time which means she is by far the most developed character. Striker gets a handful of chapters at most and felt somewhat thin in comparison - you see Max’s perspective on everything so even her silly decisions make a form of sense. In comparison, when Striker jumps in half cocked despite warnings, you don’t have that same connection. I think a more even split of perspectives would have allowed both characters to have the same depth to them. In a similar vein, you are brought up to speed quickly on Max’s powers, whilst Striker’s are never fully explored. You get tantalising hints rather than anything concrete.

That said, there’s a fantastically well paced narrative here that leaps from action to action, whilst giving you enough breathing space to become emotionally invested. It certainly never turned in quite the direction that I thought it was going to, and I was turning the pages keen to find out just how our two leads were going to drag themselves out of the ever more complicated mess they find themselves in. I just wish there was more space for world building and character development- particularly Striker and the side characters who don’t earn their own point of view. I may have to read the initial series to find out how much additional world building there is there, but I’m not sure I could recommend this as a stand-alone read from my initial impressions. I suspect that it needs the original series to be read first, but this wasn’t clear from the blurb.