** spoiler alert ** 
 It's a rare book that keeps me fairly entertained through the first half and then causes me to struggle through the climax and the last 50 pages. I love all the other Tortall books so I was in denial about not liking this one until the ending. Spoilers ahead. 
 THE GOOD 
 -Dove 
 Dove is a wonderful character who really grows out from under the shadow of her sister and into her role as queen. I wish she had been the main character since she has a much more personal connection to the revolution than Aly. 
 -Winnamine 
 I loved Winnamine's character as well. We got to see her grow closer to and become family to Dove and Sarai. As she became slowly more aware of the stakes of the events occuring around her, I thought she showed a lot of strength as a character. 
 -The darkings 
 The darkings made Aly's spy work far too easy, but I love the little creatures. They are hilarious and endearing. 
 -Premise of the main character 
 I like that Pierce created a main character that doesn't fight on the front lines and that she isn't a clone of her mother. This has drawbacks though. 
 -Aly and Dove's friendship 
 I enjoyed seeing this relationship develop over the two books. I love the scene where Aly tells Dove she'll be her friend until the end of time. I think the friendship fit well in Dove's character development. You can see how much she begins to value her close friends as people start to treat her more and more like a queen and less like a person. 
 -Sarai's fate 
 It was obvious Sarai was never going to make a good queen and I thought her running away to Carthak was a fitting choice for her passionate ruled-by-emotions character. 
 -The first book 
 I found the first book to be much more entertaining and better paced. Aly gets to do a lot more actual spy work and I liked the set up and back country setting of the story. I thought it layed good groundwork for the second book. Also, I thought Bronau made for a much better villain than the royal family. 
 THE BAD 
 -Aly 
 Everything comes FAR too easy for her. This is even more true in the second book than it was in the first. Yes, she was raised learning spy work from the best of the best, but even the most educated student still has much to learn when they finally begin the job they were trained for. She has no field experience whatsoever, not even as a lower ranking agent, but somehow Aly takes on the role of spymaster as if she's been doing it for decades. She never makes a single mistake in the entire series. Her only supposed "mistakes" were beyond her control (Sarai running away, Dunevon's death). She is unbelievably intelligent, always knows what to say and do, and is always one step ahead of the enemies. Not only that, but because of her role as spymaster, she hardly ever gets to leave her office. I like that she is different from the warrior main characters in the other novels, but the way it's written makes her journey incredibly boring. 
 I kept waiting for that struggle or obstacle that would cause her to grow as a character, but she is smug and overconfident throughout the entire series. And why shouldn't she be if she never loses? She suffers no consequences for any of her choices. None of her plans backfire or fail. I wanted to see her struggle as any 16 year old fresh out of a pampered childhood of homeschooling (in spywork) would. I wanted to see her make a mistake and earn the distrust of her fellow conspirators and have to really work to gain that trust back. But, short of a few lines of conversation, the conspirators more or less worship her. 
 -Nawat 
 Other people seem to love Nawat even if they didn't like the books. I don't get it. I like all the other love interests in the Tortall books, but I just could not get past him being a crow. I do not find it cute or endearing that he eats bugs, uses crow terminology, and hangs babies outside windows to pee (from the short story in Tortall and Other Lands), I just find it a constant reminder that Aly is having sex with a bird. He seems like a child in the first book and his "transformation into a real man" or whatever happens in the second book is hard to believe, especially considering he still acts like a crow all the time. I'm glad Aly stopped treating him like a pet by the end of the second book, but I never got what was so special about him that caused Aly to not be as bored (or creeped out) by him as she was by other men. 
 -The bumbling villains 
 The villains in this book are useless. I don't know why it even took the entire book to take them down. They are over the top in their cruelty, outsmarted by Aly throughout the book, constantly make mistakes that make everyone hate them more, and never have the upper hand. They just don't seem like much of a threat. 
 -Taybur Sibigat 
 The only character that might've made a good rival to Aly is conveniently not interested in politics or becoming spymaster. His potential as a character falls flat. 
 -The villains removing the difficult ethical dilemma 
 Dunevon and Elsren conveniently being murdered was a cop out in my opinion. It took away the difficult character-building ethical dilemma facing Aly and the conspirators of what to do with the Rittevon heirs. I really would've liked to see the character make the decision themselves. 
 -The climax 
 After watching Aly read reports for a couple hundred pages, I was hoping the climax would finally grip me, but it was disappointing. There's plenty of action, but because of the Aly's role as a non-fighter, you're not in the middle of it. She spends the climax mostly hiding and giving info to the commanders. Which is a vital role to be sure, but not a very interesting thing to read about. I think as a spy novel, it really needed a different sort of climax for Aly. There is no showdown for her, not even with Imajane, who conveniently commits suicide. But then, the villains were too stupid to even figure out she was anything more than a maid. I thought the smaller scale climax of the first book was better.