A Cruel and Fated Light

A Cruel and Fated Light is a lengthy book that takes our characters from book one and gives them time to develop. Arlo is tutored by Luck on how to use her magical die to know how to become the Hollow star. Her relationship with Nausicaä also fully develops into an open relationship and the realization of her sexual preferences.
Prince Vehan and Aurelian finally stop pining for each other and make moves to live for now. Aurelian frustrated me so much with how little he revealed about his knowledge of Queen Riadne’s cruelties. She blatantly tells him he will be a sacrifice in which to break Vehan and at no time when they were airing their feelings did Aurelian reveal this. Just Why?
We learn so much about Celadon’s abilities and his heritage. He is an extremely likable character. I appreciated the addition of his perspective as a narrator. He knows enough to be suspicious of Riadne’s intentions so I also find it incredibly frustrating that he didn’t reveal more to Arlo and friends or push his way more with Riadne. It seems like every time the plot was going to have a confrontation it just backed off and did not.
We meet Theo who has secrets. We know a little about his secrets, but that aspect of the plot also doesn’t develop and seems to go anywhere. If his character and secret society become more important in future books, I will withhold judgment now about why it was introduced and then left stagnant in this book.
Riadne’s behavior is not excusable but the flashbacks throughout do help establish how we got to the big finale action scene in the end. We also learn of formidable secret powers that she never let anyone know she has, which makes the ending more believable.
Overall, I struggled a bit with this book. I loved the action and banter between characters in the first book and felt like the sequel filled in the backstory and made the world robust but too much of the time, very little was happening to advance the plot. I feel like the characters all have enough full-bodied development to sustain many books and that ending seems like there will be plenty of action so I will give it a try for another book.

Let's talk about this book. For Book 1, I loved the plot but wasn't a big fan of the characters. The way I like to do my reviews is talk about how I felt about the story then talk about the characters. However, this book was a little different for me. Because in the 640 pages that was this book, nothing happened until the last 50 pages. In the first book, I felt like so much happened. In this one, there are like 3 action scenes? Maybe... and all of them were so short and I felt like didn't really provide much of a purpose. But 640 pages, with nothing. Yet I enjoyed this book so much more than the first one? The ending was predictable. And especially the epilogue - I had that figured out in book 1. However, I flew through this book and did not struggle with it as much as I did the first one.

So why? Because the characters were so, so, so, much better in this book. I really liked getting Celadon's point of view. It didn't happen a lot, which I am glad for. He had the perfect amount of time. Riadne's point of view was also given, but honestly - I felt like we didn't need it. There really was no reason to explain why she is the way she is. It was perfectly understandable with all the other stories. I enjoyed Vehan so much more this time around. And same with Aurelan. Maybe because they weren't as whiny and pining as the first book? They were still pining for each other, but that wasn't their main focus as a character anymore. Arlo was way more confident in this book and I really enjoyed reading more about her coming into her powers. But Arlo definitely makes naive choices, however, she is meant to be naive. And Nausicaa. I flipping LOVE Nausicaa. If this whole book was from her point of view, I would have been happy. She is my favorite.

Overall, A Cruel and Fated Light by Ashley Shuttleworth was so much better than the first book, in my opinion. Which I find conflicts with my review a little bit because I feel like nothing happened in this book. There really wasn't any progress made in the main story, until the very end. But the characters were so much more enjoyable that I found myself enjoying this book more. So if you liked the first book, or even semi-liked the first book, don't expect much in terms of progressing the story but expect to really get behind these characters. Because book 3 is where it's all going to go down.