I struggled to get into this book. The ending of the first book had devastated me so much that I struggled to read the consequences in this one, and it took me a long time to forgive Rhaik for what he did - which is a challenge since half of the chapters are from his perspective. 

But I did enjoy it by the end. The author is a great writer and does a good job of hooking you with the storyline. It's quite different to the other one in the duology - that one was focused on the trials and the whole world felt centred around it, whereas this one is more about running a kingdom and fighting wars. But it still held my interest and I was satisfied with the ending. 

I thought she should have done the bonde thing all along. I had wanted her to ask to bond with rhain at the end of the last book. That would have saved them a lot of trouble. So it's a bit annoying that they didn't just do it in the first place. And I still think Rhain was awful to her. But I liked that he genuinely does own up to it in this book and tries to make things right.