I was completely invested in the book despite that because I wanted to know what was going to happen next in the plot, with the characters, and how they were going to fight the angels. That being said, there did seem to be a lot that was more filler than necessary scenes to drive the plot, character development, relationships, etc forward. I never felt myself drifting off and missing a few paragraphs (or pages) of what was going on.

It is incredibly long though, so there were moments in which I felt that the plot and pacing dragged a little but overall it was engaging. This book didn’t have the initial world-building, character development, and foundation laying that the first one had to include so although it felt completely different, it was just as enjoyable.

Just as I would try to bring up any trigger warnings so that people go into a book aware of what they might find. This is definitely a book that straddles the line between YA and new adult, so I would give a warning about violence, sexual scenes, and other aspects that might not always be appealing to or appropriate for younger readers (even if their reading level is appropriate.) That’s a personal decision, but I felt it was best to be clear that things are very descriptive in this book and that might not be to the taste of some people. They all contributed to the plot and the storylines of Eliana and Rielle in a meaningful way. As a result of this book taking place in two time periods, there are a lot of characters to juggle and remember yet they’re generally memorable enough that you don’t struggle which I really appreciate. That being said, they both make a lot of ridiculous decisions that had me rolling my eyes. I still love Eliana more than Rielle, but they’re both such fiercely strong queens with a lot of power and responsibility on their shoulders. It’s always so fascinating to me to get to experience the depth of its development, to delve into how deep it can go, and see what the repercussions are of magic – because there are always costs. I loved getting to experience more of the magic system and how everything works in this book. Although set in the same world with the same lead characters, we are now in a different stage of Rielle and Eliana’s lives than we saw in the first book. I also loved Kingsbane, but for very different reasons. I loved the first book in the Empirium series, Furyborn by Claire Legrand.

Kingsbane claire legrand