3.25⭐️

In a lot of ways I liked this book a lot better than I did the previous entry. We got to see more of the bond between Brand and Rune as both companion/bonded and as well as friends, more of Quinn and a resolution to Max's troubles that were revealed in the first book. The machinations that went into bringing down the Hanged man were very entertaining to read.

But what makes me rate this book low is the amount of pain in this book. I am not averse to reading sad books, or about atrocities being committed to people in books. And there are books that do it very well and with a lot of sensitivity. This book has done the same. It might be that at the moment I am not upto reading about all of the bad things done to Rune or being done to others in this series. There is a mention of abuse to minors and allusions to what was done to Rune when he was younger and having this in both the 1st and 2nd books is a lot to handle for me at the moment. And it looks like there will be more along the veins of people getting both physically and emotionally hurt and I am not in the space to be reading that at the moment.

So I think I will stop with this series here for now. Maybe I will revisit it after a few more of the books in the planned 9 part series comes out but there's no guarantee.