I try to express only my most honest opinion in a spoiler free way. If you feel anything in my review is a spoiler and is not already hidden in spoiler brackets please let me know. Thank you.

This is the second book of a duology. I fell in love with the first book after the first three chapters and I am so glad I decided to read it. This book leaves off after the first book ended on a cliffhanger.

There are so many characters in this book, each with there own wonderful personalities. The book has so much diversity as well.

While I am loving the Ana/Di romance, I would have read this book just for the Jax/Robb romance. All the relationships between the character are great though. They are such a close knit group of friends that its easy to see why they are a family.

The plot was decent. It didn't feel like it had the same heart-pounding action that the first had but it did come all to a great conclusion. I was left with a few questions though. Such as, what exactly is the great dark? What did it want? Where did it come from? Oh well, guess I'll never know.

It was great to be able to learn more about Di and his past. That was probably one of my favorite parts of this book was being able to see more of his history. Surprising to me who he was, and those he knew though.

I do wanna express that I knew who the spy was right away. I don't know if the author was trying to make it obvious or not, but to me it was extremely obvious.

All in all a great book and a great series. I'm a little sad that there isn't more to this series. The book is all wrapped up at the end so I'm sure its meant to be the end. I will miss it and might come back and re-read it some day. I'll definitely be reading more of Ashely Poston's work and following for anything new.

How I choose my rating:
1* Hated it. Had to force myself to finish it.
2** Didn't really like it. Didn't hate it but not sure why I finished it other then for some closure.
3*** I liked it. I had some issues with it, but as a whole it was good. I probably won't reread again ever, but there is a chance I might finish the series. (If part of one) But if not it's not a huge loss.
4**** I really liked this book. Maybe not a work of genius, but highly entertaining. I might reread this again, and I will finish the series. (If part of one) I would recommend to those I know hold interest in this books content.
5***** I loved this book. I found little to no issues with it at all. I will definitely be rereading this and probably more than once. I will finish the series and reread it multiple times. (If part of one) I will recommend this book to EVERYONE!!!! ( )

Series Info/Source: 2nd book in the Heart of Iron duology. I bought this book.

Story (4/5): I didn’t enjoy this quite as much as the last book but I am struggling to pinpoint why. I think there was just too much jumping around between characters. All the jumping around was a bit jarring and I just never fell into the story like I did with the first one.

Characters (4/5): I feel like this book was a lot more focused on Jax and Robb than Ana and Di. Part of this is probably because Di is taken over by the HIVE for a lot of the book. Again, the short chapters that jumped from character to character prevented me from really engaging with the characters deeply.

Setting (4/5): The sci-fi world that is built here is very well done and detailed. Good world building in general.

Writing Style (4/5): The writing flowed well and was really easy to read but, again, the short chapters and constant jumping between POVs was distracting and made the story feel disjointed.

Summary (4/5): Overall this book sums up the duology nicely. This was an easy read and I enjoyed the world and the characters. I felt like this story jumped around a lot more than the first book did and that resulted in me just not being as engaged in this book. It was still well done, it just didn’t blow me away like the first book did. ( )