Corinthya

A solid second book.

• The main antagonist is a bit of a surprise for this book but sufficiently credible that it made me want to punch the characters a few times.
• We get a second antagonist that didn't feel very threatening throughout the book and so the identity reveal also felt underwhelming, however the last ploy did feel a lot more high stakes. Also the explanation of the motive was a good one and came with some extra details I appreciated and that gave answers to other standing questions we had.
• The romance was deepened in this, we got to see more personality from the male lead than just the meeting focused one from the last book. Their relationship also got more depth and interaction.
• The same standout friendships from the last book.

Really good read that kept pulling me in and didn't feel like it dragged on forever.

A world I enjoy and still catches me by surprise.

• The world building pulls from the other series in this universe and makes it feel very satisfying for me. I started in this world in the wrong order so I have a few spoilers that make this installment still feel very satisfying even if at the moment the main plot might not have made so much sense otherwise.
• The main female character is not a super physically fit character to start with which to me makes her feel more approachable because her strengths are many in the intelectual realm. So she adapts very quickly to her changing situation.
• Her male counterpart is very influenced by his species traits and is very driven from their connection in their interactions. So comes on very strong but not assholish.
• The side characters have a few standouts for me but somehow her cousin is not one of them even though she talks about her a lot.
• The main plot in the game and it gets very complicated very quickly, the author tries to make it make sense to us the strategies and all that but i could only really follow part of it and mostly because I had already the third installment in the universe that i think was better developed.
• The final 2 plot twists really made me want to keep going right away.

In the end it was a really good book for me, set in a world i've come to really love and will definitely continue reading.

Very quick and sweet.

• This lacked a bit of depth for me, despite the initial premise being serious it didn't fully convince me. Didn't help that after that first conflict it just fizzled out and left a bit of an empty feeling.
• In the relationship we get a "lot" of yearning that feels very lust fueled and their actual relationship felt the same way for me. Not to mention their obsession with breeding being kinda the reason they get together.Because the male lead is actually sweet towards the girl I wouldn't consider this dark romance.

Overall it was a bit underwhelming but nothing particularly bad to say about it, mostly just felt like it lacked.

The conclusion

• I really enjoy this world, it includes other series form other parts of the map which I really enjoyed too and the concept is not common.
• The main characters are really fun but it did feel like they suffered a bit from third part breakup, so they could decide for real that they want to be together.
• We get a redemption arc that didn't feel fully satisfying mostly because I didn't feel like there were a lot of consequences for that character and our main female lead forgave and was always ready to forgive right away despite the awful things that character had done. I don't feel that because she was hurt was a good enough reason to have little to no consequences.
• It was a different type of book in which the antagonist is not a specific character and while I enjoyed it I know it wouldn't do for everytime.

It was a satisfying series that connects to a few others and ensured I will keep reading about this universe.

A good read.

• The world got a bit of an expansion and we got to know other places, and their situations.
• This book suffered a bit of the second book syndrome, to me if felt like it dragged a bit more and that it was a lot of setup for the next book.
• We get a lot more work on the relationships and therefore more time spent with the love interests. That leads to a few personal arguments and such that didn't always feel very well developed for me but it didn't detract from the story too much.
• The mystery to solve in this book is a bit of the continuation from the previous book but felt less surprising.

Overall still a good book and I'll keep going but not as enthusiastically as the first.