** spoiler alert ** 
 I think I enjoyed this book better than the first. In The Shattered Dark, the story and characters become more complex. So many emotions were pulled out of me in this book. Aren turns out to have been Thrain's protege when he was younger. We meet a tor'um he made while under Thrain's guidance, Paige is kidnapped, Naito's brother tries to kill him, Kovak and various others from in the palace betray the rebels, Paige turns out to be sympathizing with the remnants, and Shane goes missing. 
 Throughout all of this I went from being happy to sad to shocked to crying and making other emotions. McKenzie, is captured and learns that there is even more mystery to the plot against Lena being voted as queen. Someone aside from the remnants is causing problems to keep the two sides fighting with no chance of peace. To top it all off, the book ends with McKenzie retiring after learning that Kyol life bonded with her (something extremely rare between fae and humans) in an attempt to keep her alive for Aren to reach her after suffering a mortal injury. Due to this Aren decides to break things off because he is convinced the life bond will be stronger than McKenzie's feelings for him. Lots of things happened in this relatively short time and I'm so ready for book three.