Rating: 2/5 
 ***Minor spoilers*** 
 Set approximately 8 months following the events of These Broken Stars, this book follows two new characters: Jubilee "Lee" Chase and Flynn Cormac. Lee is a captain in the military currently on Avon, and Flynn is the brother of a rebel leader who led a revolution and was executed 10 years prior. Flynn ended up in a bar within the army's camp in an attempt to find information on a military building in the swamp that he saw but there is no record of. While he's there, Lee notices him and deems him suspicious enough to want him to come to HQ with her just to make sure he's supposed to be there. Since he obviously isn't supposed to be there, he does the only thing he thinks he can do in this situation - threatens her with a gun, and kidnaps her. Not wanting to start a firefight in the middle of the bar, she goes with him and ends up being prisoner in his camp. However, they soon learn that the whole situation on Avon is way bigger than them, and their key to finding out Avon's secrets lies in discovering what the building in the middle of the swamp is. 
 I'm surprised that most of my Goodreads friends enjoyed this book so much more than I did, especially because I enjoyed the first book. I expected to like this one pretty much the same, but something just didn't do it for me with this book. It wasn't that the writing or the characters were particularly bad, but I just couldn't get into it. The characters were well developed but I just couldn't connect with them the same way I could with the first book. There's character development, but for me it was incomparable to the development of Lilac in the first book. Both characters grow and learn new things and discover that maybe they aren't each other's enemies, but for me there just wasn't enough suspense or action to interest me. It didn't help that some things were quite similar to the last book, but there's not as much of an element of surprise in this book because we've seen it before. I also wasn't a big fan of the little bits in between chapters, which seemed to be bits of Lee's memories (dreams maybe?) but I honestly didn't understand what they were supposed to be. The interrogation in the first book was a much more interesting thing to have between chapters. 
 What I did like about the book was the further development of the universe we're introduced to in the first book, and a deeper glimpse into the happenings of LaRoux Industries. We also get a little bit of both Tarver and Lilac in this book, but not a lot. I enjoyed their involvement but I wish I saw more of them since they were great in the first book. I also liked that the Whispers made a bit more sense in this book, even if I still don't fully understand them. 
 Overall, I didn't hate this book or anything, but I didn't enjoy it all that much either. I couldn't stop comparing it to the first book, which for me outshines this book, and so my enjoyment was taken away. I am still planning to read the third book at some point, but I will make sure to go in with lower expectations than I did with this one. Then again, maybe this is just middle book syndrome in my case. Nevertheless, although this book could've been better, I won't give up hope in the series.