The Liars Knot is everything that I loved about Mask of Mirrors but kicked up a notch. The heavy lifting of the worldbuilding is mostly done early in book 1, so you can just focus on the complex characters, their motivations, flaws, and relationships with each other. You still have scheming, balls, political intrigue, vigilante shit, more lore on the magic system and how it works! Nadežra is so vividly real to me it’s insane.

But above all, it’s truly a character driven book. The layers to these characters come to a head in this book in so many unexpected ways. You see character dynamics across all the different personas and masks worn and it’s so fun seeing what each other know and keeping it all straight. At the end of the day, they’re enemies, while also being allies, and everything in between it’s so good.

The character relationships between Ren, Vargo, and Grey and even other characters like Alsius/Tess/Sedge is just so beautiful to read too especially with how they develop and change over time. There’s so much growth, but in an organic way. The plot doesn’t suffer from that either. Found family 😭😭

The romance was so naturally developed and probably one of the best romantic subplots I’ve read in a while because of how it was written and the individual characters themselves.

Ren and Grey nearly killed me in this book, they had so many good moments across all their personas and in the end, how they come together is soooo beautiful to watch. Truly miraculous ladybug vibes hehe

Vargo and Ren reconciliation had me 🥹🥹 Grey and Vargo scenes too ughh ALSIUS DESERVES HIS OWN POVVVV

the best sequel!