Review to come! 
 Update 4/15/16: 
 See more reviews on my blog Novels and Necklaces 
 Actual rating 2.5 stars 
 This book let me down in so many ways I probably couldn't list them all. Suffice to say, this book wasn't at all what I was expecting, and it left me disappointed. Honestly, rounding up to 3 stars is being nice, but because the book wasn't all bad, it gets 3 stars (since I still can't do half stars!). 
 Let me start with the bad since that vastly outnumbers the good. First was the writing...it was boring and suffered a lack of emotion. There are many books out there where you can feel how much of the author's heart and soul is in the book, but with this novel, I didn't get that feeling. There were times I felt it was just something she chose to write because why not? The plot was way too convenient. I can't even count the number of scenes where everything worked out perfectly and in just the right way no matter how unrealistic it was with the rest of the scene/storyline. On top of that, even when things started getting bad, there was 
 always 
 something there to get the characters out of the situation. It was just very unbelievable in many scenes and it made my interest in the book decrease more and more over the course of the story. 
 Then there was the idea of the assassins clippers. There wasn't much in the way of backstory to give us an understanding why there were 9 families (think mafia) that were the powerhouses in the city. There was a king, but apparently he didn't really serve any purpose next to these families. The one major thing that bothered me about the whole idea of the clippers was the fact that they justified murder by saying it was a "mercy" since the people that were killed were going to be reincarnated. But then they would turn around and virtually lose their minds over something relatively minor in comparison (like stealing from a citizen). On top of that, every clipper wore a mask. Why? I have no idea...this was never explained, and it made zero sense since everyone (even the citizens) were able to recognize the clippers by their masks. So I ask, what was the point?? 
 The romance was something that I had a love/hate relationship with. The hate part came with the fact that this book is marketed as a comparison to Romeo and Juliet. However, this is not at all what it is. For the first couple of chapters it is, slightly. Val and Lea are from opposing families and are supposedly in love. I never felt the love between them, but maybe given time, I would have liked them together more and felt their romance. It's a shame that the idea of forbidden love wasn't explored more because I think this would have made the book a lot more interesting. But as I said, they are together for literally the first several chapters and then they're done...albeit for a good reason, but they're caput. The romance I did love though was the romance between Lea and Les (don't even get me started on the character naming in this book). They truly had chemistry right from the off and I loved them together! And purely because of how much I loved them, I was willing to round up to the 3 stars. 
 Overall, I would recommend skipping this one. It was a flop for me, but it could actually be a great read for some. The main reason this book was a flop was because I felt it wasn't as well thought out as it should have been. Let me be super straightforward, this book had a TON of potential. This could have been an excellent book, on the level of Throne of Glass. Unfortunately it wasn't. There were some exciting parts and the romance between Lea and Les was the highlight of the story, but that was about it. Oh well...on to the next! 
 Happy reading :)