Unfortunately, I had quite a few gripes about this book. 
 To begin - the characters - Jolie and Rand were well enough developed but I just couldn't find anything about them that made me latch onto them and really care. Now, Christa (the best friend) had pretty much no character development at all. I saw her as just the token friend character thrown in there so that Jolie could have someone to fall back on now and then and be made to feel more secure or insecure in situations where that was needed. The fact that she followed her around the country, then out of the country was way too convenient. 
 Jolie herself - yeah she bugged me with her whole lusting after several men and acting as if she wants to do more with Rand in one scene but then fighting off her urges in another? A bit of a ploy to build more sexual tension in my opinion - wasn't working for me. 
 Now as for bad guy development - so not there. Why should we be afraid of this Bella lady, how did she get all these other races to join her side in the first place? Lots left open, which in a series book is normal but still a little bit more info should be there. 
 Too many supernatural races too quickly. I don't know why it bugged me so much, maybe it was that she put a bunch in there but they all essentially felt so shallow in the species dept. Like each wasn't built up very well. Just put in the mix to be there. 
 It left me with an annoyed feeling and I didn't like it at all. Heck, going back to my convenient comment at the beginning maybe that's what ticked me off so much about this read - so much of it was just 'way too convenient.' The plots, the characters, the additional races, the convenient use of powers and easy wins. 
 *especially irritating convenient powers, changing to an animal shape when you're a witch, instant clothes, changing your appearance, no spells, oh and just miraculously being able to bring people back from the dead without having any real concept of ever having any power beyond visions before that?* ...erg 
 I hate to write negative reviews - but because I stuck it out and read through the entire thing - I'm going to put my opinion out there.