Anassa

So this book, like the first one, was AMAZING. Wow!!! I really liked the building of the lands of Erthe in this book! Etain and Taurus were great, as were Aula and Joomia (of course) and oooooh Sol!! Who I now love with my whole heart he is the best!!

Everything about this book was compelling and sooo well written, I would have loved to see more with Sol, Domaga, and Vulcan though.
And uhhhh maybe there was one aspect that wasn't great - Taurus' love life. What even happened to Lear?? While Etain and Joomia's relationship, briefly hinted at in the first book, was well developed and took its time, Taurus and Aula's relationship just never really...did it for me. While of course it is important to depict bisexual people in relationships with the opposite gender because they're not just gay and they're not just straight, Taurus and Aula kinda sucked. They don't get to evolve it at all during the book apart from Taurus' pining, and honestly I never really liked them as a couple in the first place. Sometimes that's just a thing.

Anyway, I want to talk about all the good things about this book.

- Etain and Taurus's relationship with their late mother. I thought it was really interesting to see how Ashir's treatment of her children, while born out of love, was actually terribly flawed.

- New magic/development of magic. It was so cool to have Sol explain the actual names of the types of magic there is, as well as introducing new magic, like the ants/spiders and the transformation necklaces, and how they applied the magic in different ways, such as the way Govidans would insert the bones of those with etheling magic into their own bodies (yikes)

- The exploration of Ade and Ashir's relationship. Although there wasn't much of this, I still liked seeing it made clear that they were in love.

- Introduction of new people. I like seeing the Govidans and seeing how different they are, with all their sexism and transphobia and what not. It was quite a clash with the Chlorisians.

- Etain and Joomia's relationship. Adorable. So sweet and took foreverrrr but for understandable reasons. If there was a threequel made in this series I'd love to see more of them together.

- Etain! Etain is great. She easily became one of my favourite characters over this book. The way she handled her responsibility felt very realistic and I found her to be a well-written, very likeable character.

- Sol! Okay, so Sol is my favourite character now. (Totally not because we're both trans guys ahahsh) He is great. I really like his unexpected introduction and his quick redemption feels fluid and realistic. The reveal of his transness was also done very well, despite the jolt it gave me, but I found our other main characters' reactions to be very comforting. His past is so interesting and I kind of really really really want a prequel set on Govinda about him and Domaga and Vulcan as they grew up. (I'd also be interested to here more of the person he loves back on Govinda...) The reveal of his powers was awesome, because a queer trans man who has to power to cause earthquakes and create last is AMAZING and my favourite thing now!! Although I felt there could've been more with him at the end, maybe in the Epilogue, I'm still happy with his character. He is the best.