I don’t know how I feel about this book. I was not engaged to the story as I was in the first one. So many things happened but it all felt a bit rushed and it was hard to follow at times.

I did not care about most of the characters. I tried to, especially for the Hawthorne brothers, but i just couldn’t. It was to the point that I didn’t care who Avery ended up with (I was kinda rooting for her to end up with Grayeson but I stopped when it became obvious that her and Jameson would be endgame). I think it would have been better if the author dedicated time in the narrative to flesh them out. This goes for all the other characters such as Thea, Rebecca, Alison and Nash (he, along with Xander I felt were sidelined for much of the book in favor of the love triangle which sucks because I really liked them in the first book.)

Avery herself wasn’t interesting personality wise (in my opinion, she never was but I still liked her more in the inheritance game than this one). The love triangle has a lot to do with that, as well as the fact that I find her narrative voice to be very bland.

Despite these issues, I still enjoyed the book (kinda). I’m going to continue on to the final gambit; I hope it turns out better than this one.