Initial Impressions 5/23/17 and full review as posted on The Book Addict's Guide 7/13/17: 3.75 - 4 stars 
 Hiding this review because there's no way I can talk about it without spoilers, but first, some non-spoilery things! 
 - I loved that this world felt the same! There are some times with sequels that it feels like a totally different book but I was able to fall back into this world right where I left off. 
 - It was much more political and while I don't mind that, I did miss some of that fun and a "challenge" aspect of The Crown's Game itself (the game, not the book) because it was a fun structure and involved some creativity on the characters' parts to explore their abilities. 
 - I still love Pasha. 
 (view spoiler)[Okay, so here are the spoilers. While the world felt the same, why why whyyyyy did we have to have Nikoali turn bad!? Nikolai was too pure and sweet and precious and he was my favorite part of the whole darn book so I was SO SAD to see that his character was essentially removed from the story line since his whole personality changed. Because of REASONS, yes, but still. My favorite part of this story was changed and to boot, that affected the romance too which I wanted to see developed even MORE and that got put on hold because "bad" Nikolai of course wasn't pursuing romance. SIGH. So the book was still enjoyable but I was expecting five glowing stars and that's why I ended up on 3.75 - 4 stars. 
 I also just wanted more magic? The magic involved in this book was kind of dark, which is cool, I can appreciate dark magic... But I missed that sparring between Vika and Nikolai. I guess I'm just tired of everything ending in war or battles (which is silly considering that this series is also kiiiiind of historical fiction, with magic) so I didn't really want to see things come to that. Maybe I just want things to be too happy haha!! 
 I DID appreciate that things didn't turn out too sunshine-y though. I actually liked what happened to Vika in the end? There has to be something in the events of war because no one comes out wholly unscathed and it's a great shock to readers when something happens to a main character, even if it's not a death. I applaud Evelyn Skye for taking it there! (hide spoiler)] 
 When it comes down to it, not the ending I was expecting or hoping for the series but I also appreciated how it wrapped up. I think I just wanted more romance and more Nikolai. Always more Nikolai.