Crisis is the superior book of this duology. There is more action, more complicated plotting, and more emotion; and I ended up reading the whole book in essentially one sitting as I couldn't put it down.

I do have some points of criticism. The tactical and military plans are carried out far too easily and essentially rely on one character being a tactical genius; always something difficult to pull off well in fiction - especially without making the character annoying, which was on occasion a problem here. 

The saving grace here is that like book one, the book isn't focused on plot but on characters and relationships. A number of characters appear in this sequel who were only mentioned in the first book, and they're very welcome, especially those who have close bonds with Sevastien. 

There is a background romance (which was apparent from book one) and unfortunately I'm not fond of it, I would have much preferred the duology without it. Still, there were some nice moments towards the end of book two. 

Although all the key threads were tied up nicely at the end of the book, I was left wanting to spend much more time with Sevastien; which I think is a sign of how much I enjoyed reading this.