After her perilous quest to free her mother, Xingyin thrives once more in the tranquility of her home. But her fragile peace is threatened —
–GoodReads
My Review
Before we begin, I give you my review for book 1 if you want to check that out ^^^
Now
Onto the review for this which I’m totally unprepared to give you all (in true CR style).
Any misgivings I had on some decisions were totally blown out of the water by Tan it was like she knew what I had in my head and said ‘bet.’ And that is such a damn treat.
Xingyin is home, things should be settling into something normal, the Prince visits, and her friends come by, and yet it’s a tenuous matter. The Emperor and Empress haven’t forgotten the trouble Xingyin stirred up. Not to mention other things are brewing, and they’re much bigger than Xingyin and they’re not far away, they’re coming to her doorstep.
Xingyin has to flee again, but this time she’s not leaving behind her family; that includes more members than she thought with some shocking revelations.
The flow of this is as masterful as the last one and Tan’s writing style is actually just straight up *GORGEOUS* and evocative. I got teary-eyed, I felt emotional, and usually, I’m not actually emotional when I read, I’m just like ‘Aw…that’s so sad’ *feels sad, moves on, insert Loki gif here.*
Xingyin had some immaturities still but this makes sense, she’s still so young. And I want to see that, I want to see a character be their age. She has such a complicated love life in this one and really I thought it was complicated last time, but this takes the cake.
There’s so much heartache she has to deal with and then she’s like ‘Well love life, guess we’re gonna add you to the mix.’ It was at times a bit funny cause it’s like ‘life or death, let’s keep to the important stuff’ but then again I was also so invested. SO. INVESTED.
The outcome overall of this book is perfection in my opinion. The ending was beautiful and I may be getting slightly teary just thinking of it. I know it may not be everyone’s cup of tea but I think this is the best way she could have finished this book and I’m all here for it.
If you want amazingly written scenes including awesome battle and fight scenes that rip at your heart and stomp on it, might I recommend this book?
5/5 Huge cups of Coffee from me!
The Caffeinated Reader 
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