"At this precise moment, I can genuinely say that my only wish is to remain here with you."

I'm incredibly pleased to say that I found this a drastic improvement on book 1.

To be clear, I didn't dislike book 1. I actually enjoyed quite a bit of it, but my feelings were also conflicted due to some personal and technical complaints (particularly in the treatment/abuse of the changling fae child and the ableist narrative it perpetuated) but also... I didn't really care for the romance.

This book was practically a 180. It maintained everything I appreciated about the first book, while improving on every single aspect that I had struggled with. The romance? Spectacular. The pacing? I couldn't put it down. This was magical and dark and romantic, without any of the aspects that made me question if I even enjoyed the first book.

That isn't to say this book was perfect, more just that it was perfect for what I needed right now. It still has some rocky moments in terms of plotting, but I had such a great time reading that they were easy to overlook.

I won't say that it was entirely unproblematic as I'm sure there could be something I missed/overlooked, but from my perspective, I didn't notice anything that was nearly as devastating or offensive as some of the plot-points in its predecessor.

Overall, I really enjoyed this. Whether you loved book 1 or felt neutral about it, I'm here to join with the majority in saying that this is much better.