Of Darkness and Light

Wow what a book. About halfway through this book I was enjoying it, but then a single chapter added a whole star to my rating and it only kept up that impressive storytelling, characterisation and overall fun. I love so many of the characters, am deeply invested in the world and am so so excited for the next one.

This is the sequel to Of Blood and Fire, and it is book two of The Bound and the Broken series. Another cool, simple cover too. 
This sequel does a fantastic job of amping up everything that started in the first. It opens directly following the events of the first and continues straight through. There is next to no dull moments, with amplified action, dialogue, adventure, emotion, suffering, and danger. The writing gets a nice boost of improvement to the first as well, which is always a nice thing to see following a debut. 
For me, the thing this sequel does the best, is further and further distance itself from others of its kind. Not only Eragon and Paolini, but dragon riders and fantasy as a whole. Cahill is not necessarily doing anything outside of the mold, but he is further making it his own, and damn is this one fun. And blood pumping. 
I love where the characters went in this sequel and I thoroughly enjoyed the new ones too. Personally a 5/5* for me. Absolutely read this series. 

This books unfolds the world of Epheria even more. There are new additional POVs, plotlines and locations. New POVs help establish characters and the world better, expanding and providing new information about the world. It feels like page by page the reader learns something new about the world and magic.
Even though Of Darkness and Light has a big cast of side characters, primarily focus is on the main characters, making the story easier to follow. However, providing less characterization and depth to the side characters, makes being with them less impactful.
The pacing of the book is well-balanced, the quiet moments are entwined with fast-paced action sequences, which were excellently wriiten and extremely visual. However, sometimes the tone made some weird and sudden switches from moody to joking and laughing that felt very abrupt.
Overall the book is enjoyable and fun.

3.75 // the second half was so much less exciting than the first half, which is like the complete opposite of how i felt about book 1. and i feel like there was some missed opportunities in certain scenes. also not sure how i feel about that reveal...but overall this was pretty fun. Calen and Valerys (honorary mentions include Vaeril, Dann, and Erik) are for sure my favorite part and are what make my rating this high

I feel absolutely worn out for these characters but this was so, so good. That ending?!