Review Detail

This book was the perfect culmination of the books and novellas surrounding Chloe Gong’s Shanghai 1920s-1930s historical fantasy. I loved diving deep into the characters’ relationships with each other and the cameos of all the characters from previous books. Chloe Gong does an excellent job intricately detailing the atmosphere and political chaos of that era to set the stage, but this book shines through with the characters’ thoughts, motivations, and goals.
With the Civil War between the Nationalists and Communists and the invasion from the Japanese, our set of characters have one obstacle in their way after another as they also try to rescue Orion from his mother and save him from the brainwashing and other experiments. With the family/friend connections and the different faction allegiances, code names, triple agents, and secret identities this book might better be enjoyed by rereading the series to keep it all straight.
The different couples have the perfect amount of intense yearning and devotion while never being graphic. Orion’s amnesia allows for his relationship with Rosalind to build again which is swoon-worthy! It also acts as a handy device to help remember all the events and people. We see more of Oliver and Celia’s relationship and how he breaks through her resistance which is a great bonus.
I am sometimes left impatient to get back to other characters when the perspectives switch, but I never experienced that with this book. All the characters were involved in intense situations with a splash of romantic undertones that made it exciting to keep reading at every juncture.
Overall, this was a feast of details and romance with intense situations to keep the action turned high the whole book. It was everything desired for the second book in a duology to wrap everything up and the bonus cameos from it being the fifth book set with these characters. It is a thick book that feels like the perfect length. It is highly entertaining and ends on the perfect note!