Welcome to another one of my long and meandering reviews. Here goes: 
 I haven't had the best of luck with this series- in fact, after the superb series debut, all the others went bust (except mebbe book 5), and Ms. Harrison couldn't seem to recreate the magic she had with her initial characters. I have been swearing I am done with this series, but Dragos, Pia, Graydon, and now Liam, keep drawing me back. 
 So now for the thoughts: 
 The characters: 
 Aryal: like BamaGal said when she was still on here, this book was going to be a sort of a quandary: Aryal's been written as such an unsympathetic character in previous books that to read her as she was wouldn't be very fun, but to make like she is a misunderstood soul who's really sweet on the inside would be a cop-out... And I agree. 
 After reading I will not say the Aryal we saw in this book was a cop-out, but I will also not say Ms. Harrison was faithful to the character she had previously created; it was somewhere intermediate. 
 Quentin: Eh. He was okay, I guess. I didn't take to him like I have some of the other characters, but he was....aight. Not the worst hero in this series- actually one of the better ones, come to think of it. 
 However, after finding out that it was he who outed Dragos and Pia to Urien in book 1, I wanted someone to tell Dragos because I wanted a smackdown!! But alas- no one cares about my wishes, so no one did. 
 Supporting cast: 
 Dragos! Liam! Pia! Graydon! Oh, my heart sang whenever these people entered the plot. I loved their mini appearances, loved it! 
 Grym- we haven't seem much of this sentinel in previous books, but I really enjoyed what I saw of him in this book: his levelheadedness and his tenderness for Aryal. 
 The love: 
 I do not know that I bought the love (or even the kink), but I will admit there was something there. Actually I think it mighta been more believable/awesome had Aryal mated with Grym. But oh wells. 
 The story: 
 Eh. Because the main characters were 'eh', the plot was 'eh.' But even so, I was more interested than I have been for a while in this series. 
 While I wasn't that invested in our main characters, Ms Harrison did a fantastic job of interesting me in just about everyone else: Gray, Bayne, Constantine; Ferion, Linwe (even Beluviel, who only gets a throwaway sentence); Alexander, the new Pegasus sentinel, Eva, and of course, my Dragos, Pia, and Liam. 
 What also surprised me was the (platonic) tenderness and sensitivity shown all throughout the book. Aryal for Liam, Grym and Graydon for Aryal, Dragos for Aryal, Aryal for Dragos, Alexander for Quentin, Quentin for Linwe....all throughout, and it was heartwarming. 
 So with a sigh of resignation, i will be coming back, just cos I wanna know what happens to these ppl, dammit. 
 In conclusion: not a bad book by any stretch of the imagination, but not an excellent entry either. The whole was less than the sum of its parts, but not by much.