Royal Airs is an enjoyable return to Welce, but sadly it falls to live up to its predecessor Troubled Waters. That being said, it's by no means a bad book and indeed I could still barely put it down. I still highly recommend it to fans of the first book, and it's also worth reading to get to the third book, which is a return to form. The same beloved characters are back and there's still lots of exciting political intrigue. This book gives us much more insight into Josetta and Corene's characters. Just lower your expectations a little going into this sequel and you'll be satisfied. 
 The main characters of this book are Josetta and Josetta's new love interest, Rafe. I was initially excited to get to focus on a minor character from the previous book and learn more about her, but unfortunately she is a very passive player in the most exciting conflict of this novel. 
 Romance first, interesting political intrigue second 
 Here are the main problems with this book. Whereas in Troubled Waters the political intrigue conflict took center stage, and the romance took a secondary role, this is reversed in Royal Airs. Problematically, the secondary political intrigue plot is far more interesting than the romance! And as the secondary conflict only indirectly involves Josetta, the secondary characters who are involved, Darien and Corene, far outshine our main heroine. Josetta is of course involved in the main romance, but the romance is dull and conflict free, and her main concern in the novel is trying to find time to get away from her family so she can have sex. Boring. 
 The gambling vagabond with a heart of gold 
 The other issue I had with the romance is Rafe. Darien was an amazingly interesting love interest in the last novel. He had his own strengths and weaknesses, and a character arc and goals that were both separate and complementary to the main heroine Zoe's character arc. I don't like Rafe. He is just a too conveniently perfect bad boy, and I'm not a fan of the character type. He's an honorable-to-a-fault, loyal, kind gambler who lives in the slums. Yeah. Sure. (view spoiler)[And then later you find out he's also conveniently a secret prince (doubly so!), solving the princess loves a commoner conflict before it even started. Of course he's a secret prince. (hide spoiler)] Rafe's main plot was working on inventing airplanes, which sounds interesting, but it's sadly not. The book definitely slows down considerably when the focus switches off the politics and on to Josetta and Rafe. 
 Josetta's complete lack of a character arc 
 The other issue I have with the romance is how contrived part of the plot surrounding it was. At one point in the novel, the plot contrives an excuse to make Rafe and Josetta have to stay together at all times. Conveniently. Sigh. Prior to meeting Rafe, Josetta had stated that she had found her purpose in life running a shelter for the homeless. But when this contrivance happens Josetta has no issues more or less abandoning her purpose in life to be with Rafe. Which leads me to another problem in this novel. Josetta has no character development. She is the same person at the end of the novel that she was at the beginning of the novel. She goes through no conflict. She is a passive player in all of the novel's plots other than the romance, and does not grow. Her major character growth, deciding to leave the palace life and start her shelter, happens before the novel takes place. Which is really sad, because that would've been an interesting character arc for her. Instead we just get her mooning over Rafe the whole time and it is boring. 
 Darien and Corene steal the show 
 As I mentioned before, whenever Darien and Corene are around, they really steal the thunder from our dull main characters. We get to see a lot of Corene's relationship with her mother and father, and she gets a lot of development as a result. I believe Shinn is setting Corene up for the next novel, where she is the main character, and I can't wait to read it. 
 We also get to see Darien's struggles in this novel when he's trying to balance all his responsibilities while simultaneously keeping his family safe. Darien's character is showcased perfectly in his interactions with Rafe. Rafe and Darien initially don't get along, as anyone who knows Darien's character from the previous book would expect. Darien is a stubborn, strong-willed man used to getting his way, and is initially off-putting and hard to like. But as Rafe watches Darien deftly balance his many weighty responsibilities, and sees his more human side when he's around his family, he comes to develop respect for him, just as us readers did in the first novel through Zoe's eyes. Darien and Zoe are in this novel a lot, which is great, but it is a little disappointing that Shinn couldn't have thrown in a scene or two of them being affectionate with each other. Mostly they interact with the other characters in the scenes where they are present, which is a shame. 
 (view spoiler)[A pity that the interesting direction of Welce becoming a democracy was quickly killed in favor of selecting Darien as king. (hide spoiler)]