On another world, a war has been waged for centuries between the Seraphim and the Chimera. That war has finally ended with the defeat of the Chimera, and now all that remains is the systematic extermination of the races which once called Eretz home. Karou--raised human and only recenty reunited with her people--now fights with the Chimera rebels, lashing out against the angelic forces and resurrecting the fallen soldiers in fresh bodies to keep fighting. On the opposite side of the fighting is Akiva, the angel who fell in love with Karou 18 years ago, when the two of them dreamed of making peace between their races.
LOVE. Lovelovelovelovelovelovelove. If I loved Daughter of Smoke and Bone, I loved this ten times more. Taylor once again manages to make our own world seem every bit as exotic and exciting as the world of monsters and angels. Like the last book, this one travels to distant lands--in this case, Morocco, in an abandoned kasbah in the desert. But more of this book is also set in Eretz, where we get to see beyond the fort-city of Karou's memories, and into the way normal, everyday people live. We also get to see the Seraph capital in all its glory.
Even better, the stakes are higher here: while the last book focused on Karou's relationship with Akiva, this one is more about the war itself. To that end, it deals with some pretty dark topics--genocide, vengeance, stockholm syndrome, and more (the "more" here is the attempted rape of one of the teenage characters *shudder*). The romance is still there, but it's on the backburner. Other reviewers have said that Taylor is clearly setting up a love triangle for book three, but if so, she's doing a really good job of it--I genuinely like both potential suitors, and would be happy for Karou to choose either; that said, there's a good chance that she will choose neither, which would also be a refreshing change.
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