A sequel that was more of the same as book one. If you liked [b: A Darker Shade of Magic|22055262|A Darker Shade of Magic (Shades of Magic, #1)|V.E. Schwab|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1400322851s/22055262.jpg|40098252] you will probably like this one just as much. The same characters appear, the setting is more concentrated on Red London and instead of Holland we get the roguish Captain Emery. Except of course he is one of the good guys (mostly) and Holland really was not.

What this books lacks most is an actual antagonist. Or someone actively trying to make things go wrong for the protagonists. But here we only have themselves trying to stumble through a long setup for a magical tournament in which none of them should be taking part.

I was listening to audiobook read by Kate Reading and Michael Kramer because I enjoyed their reading of [b: Words of Radiance|17332218|Words of Radiance (The Stormlight Archive, #2)|Brandon Sanderson|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1507307927s/17332218.jpg|16482835] (etc) immensely and for the first few hours of the book it was highly irritating to hear Kaladin and Shallan speaking except they were Lila and Kell.

When I started the first book I had such high hopes that there would be a dark and dangerous type of hero but the darkness in these books seems to be mostly teenage angst or twenty-something-angst (which you get when characters refuse to grow up). I've already got the third book as audio due to an abundance of audible credits I needed to get rid of. The setup for book three is "mildly promising" and yet I feel such ennui when I think of these books. I guess Kell's mindset got to me after all.