The events at the end of the Daylight War were destined to have a ripple effect, especially in Krasia, and this entire book is dedicated to that purpose. This means that this book is actually more focused on the daylight war than the last one, despite the respective titles. For many readers this is a disappointing turn of events as it does put the story arc regarding the Demon War mostly to the side but the significant events that occur with many of the main characters still makes for good story telling. The ending of the last book was a cliff hanger so don't proceed with reading the rest of this review unless you have already finished that one...

As he has been doing with each book in the series, Peter V. Brett elevates that stature of a lesser character and flushes out their background story. This time he reaches pretty deep to focus on Ashia, who is one of the secretly trained spear sisters that guards Inevera. We get a good dose of her backstory which also reveals that some other characters that we know well were also trained in a similar way and they are just as deadly. These spear sisters hide in the shadows ready to strike at a moment's notice and are better trained for fighting humans then their male counterparts who are mostly trained to fight demons.

The secret of the spear sisters comes to light in the turmoil that follows the disappearance of Arlen and Jardir as many factions vie for power on both sides of the daylight war. In-fighting and politics dominate the story lines in this book as the power vacuum must be filled. As Cutter's Hollow grows in political power so do the many characters we have followed from the beginning. With the invading Krasian army forcing new alliances to be made we can see that the Thesans can be just as treacherous to each other as the Krasians are.

Despite the change in focus away from the demon war I still enjoyed this book. It was an opportunity to focus on how many characters handle themselves when their powerful leaders are absent, which is something they might need to get used to. The final book of the series, Core, is due out later this year and I eagerly await the inevitable return to the demon war and the conclusion of this excellent series. As always, Pete Bradbury does an excellent job on the narration for the audiobook.