Perhaps my fault for reading six of this series in like a week, but this disappointed me. From a sequel trilogy I wanted some kind of fresh spin. And yes the plot and world expansions are good and interesting, but everything else felt a bit samey without as much payoff because we're already used to the main characters. I think I prefer Juliet Marrilier's approach to sequels, where you follow only the new generation of characters and old familiar characters do appear but they aren't perspective characters anymore: it's a new story. In this, Dannyl, Sonea, and Cery's perspective plots didn't feel very compelling. The romance plot didn't feel exciting for this reason.

Also if you do have Sonea in it, a now-older, powerful person who's an intimidating figure to the new younger characters, I want to see the cool scene where she does something powerful and cool! Which never arrived.