After finding Powerless so engrossing, I was concerned about how I’d fare with book two. The middle in a trilogy often feels like filler material, and this really was no exception. I think the fact that the book focuses on Kai the Enforcer being sent to find Paedyn and return her to the new king made for a tough book to find interesting.
We follow Paedyn on her escape after killing the King, and we see Kai’s thoughts as he pursues the one woman he has felt able to be himself in front of. The first part of the book sets up the cat and mouse idea, and then Kai finds her and we’re expected to believe that the errand he was sent on would ever be left to such chance.
From the time they are reunited it felt like we were doomed to watch the same scene on an endless loop, like some warped replay of Groundhog Day. They flirt, profess to hate each other then end up showing that’s not the case…then repeat, many many times.
By the time we approach the end I have to say I was kind of hoping he would be tasked with killing her (just to move things on a little). But it seems that the doomed love story is to continue into a third book. The only saving grace is that with the situation being as it is, neither Kai nor Paedyn are likely to be able to do much about their feelings. I half wonder whether her origins will turn out to be something different to what she is aware of, and perhaps we’ll get to see something change in the construction of the society they live in.