Very horny for YA. 
I agree with the other reviews, "Dark Heir" suffers from being the second book in (I think) a trilogy.

There are more plot holes than I found tolerable and a whole lot of characters who serve no other purpose than to help our heroes and die immediately after. 
Visander and Philip intrigued me, but I felt both were left unexplored by the narrative.
Elizabeth is still one of my favourites, delightfully written to be a child whilst still very clever.
Cyprian was sweet, I loved his development but I was still left wanting more.
Violet, I truly don't understand why she had the subplot she did.

I adore her, more than Will probably so it was so frustrating having her be reduced to a C plot that was quite literally happening in another country. I felt like she disappeared for the first 40%. And I like all the ideas the C plot brought up like her mom and Tom, most of the time she would be absent for long chunks in the book I would forget what had last happened when we were with her. But her chapters were usually after some cliffhanger in the A or B plot so in comparison her brief imprisonment felt irrelevant

I felt enraged on James's behalf

I had accidentally spoiled the fact that he ends this book with the collar so I was dreading it, I really dislike the creepy implications and I'm really hoping he ends the series free from it.

Also, shout out to Will for being simply the worst at communicating I'm sure you're friends would've believed in you if you tried a little harder to not sound evil ❤.

Wow, this book just blew all of my expectations out of the water. I read and enjoyed the first book, Dark Rise, well enough. I thought it was an interesting premise with pretty good world building and some subversions of fantasy tropes, with writing that was a little campydramatic for my tastes at times but mostly good. I was looking forward to reading the second book, but after what I thought was a fairly anticlimactic and muddled ending of the first one my hopes weren't super high. I was expecting a run-of-the-mill follow up and what I got was probably one of the best sequels I've read in a long, long time. 

The character development, especially for the leads, is excellent. Will and James in particular each have these full arcs that really help them develop into well-rounded and complicated characters. Violet, Cyprian, and Elizabeth each have their moments to shine as well, although we spend significantly less time with Violet than in the first one which was a bit sad for me. Even the new character (no spoilers) was a welcome addition, and added another layer of tension and complexity to the relationships in the book. The pacing was solid throughout, I found myself having to take breaks from reading so I wouldn't finish it too quickly. My biggest gripe from the first book- the ending- was completely 180'd in this one. The ending was incredible, I couldn't put the book down, and I was audibly gasping at some of the scenes. (That cliffhanger though...!)  The writing quality has improved a bit too, I think, although I will say that the series could probably use for another round or two of revisions, as there is some repetitive language and descriptive scenes that drag on a little long. 

The biggest weakness of this book for me was the fact that the crew got split up pretty early on in the story, which caused a whole bunch of POV-skipping and it got a bit convoluted. Also the timeline of events of the book just straight up doesn't make sense if you think about it for more than 10 seconds. But I digress, I am willing to look past this in favor of everything else. My only other note would be that the relationships in this book, like the first one, are definitely a slow burn and there is a lot, and I mean A LOT of URST for most of it, between multiple characters, for the entire thing. I found myself forgetting that it's technically a YA book often. I'm not really sure if they're going to be able to keep that rating for the next book if things keep escalating the way they did in the second... Nevertheless, I am so excited for the third installment! If you liked the first book at all but found it a little meandering at times, I implore you to give this one a go. It notably improved over the first. 

i very rarely read fantasy books, but i’m so glad i read this series, it was incredible. i love morally grey characters and complicated hero/villain dynamics. 
all i gotta say is, will deserves the world, cyprian needs to be throttled and james should get a fckin break after carrying this series on his back. thank you