I liked this sequel to the Cruel Prince, Black developed the characters further and gave us more depth in each of them. She set up the characters well and let us see how Jude viewed each of them through her mind. I have to say that it wasn't as good as the first book (A Cruel Prince) and there was little development between Jude and Cardan's relationship but it sets them up well for the third and final book in the trilogy. Jude is however portrayed as quite self centred and seems extremely power hungry, she didn't have her life easy in the first book but this book made her seem quite shallow. She makes some poor choices which is necessary for this book I guess but it overall made me prefer Cardan's character.