Fate's Edge by Ilona Andrews

I honestly spent a lot of my time reading Fate's Edge rolling my eyes and skimming. I knew there was romance involved, because the last two books also included romance. However, this one has a lot more mooning and flirting and just so much blech. I'm not a fan of traditional romance and this very much strayed too far into that for my liking. I liked the spy bits, though.

I very much enjoyed getting more of Kaldar. He was my favorite of the Mar family aside from Cerise. It was fun getting to see him so fully in his element. I'm glad he found his niche in society. I'm glad he found Audrey. They really are perfect for each other.

Audrey was an interesting way to do some kind of POV character. She knows some stuff about conning and theft, but very little about the Weird and their ways... and doesn't actually seem to do a lot of socializing with anyone from the Edge, either. Throwing her in with Kaldar and the boys was fun.

I actually enjoyed seeing George and Jack more grown-up. I don't know that I was expecting for them to actually step "on-screen" again. Figured they'd just be in the background, but was pleasantly surprised. They're definitely showing more personality and drive than I think I expected from them.

On plot-relevant stuff: The whole thing is basically kicked off in a purely verbal altercation between Jack and some Blueblood... at least I definitely read it as purely verbal and so Declan's reaction seems really, really overblown. Like, sir, Jack didn't actually DO anything other than expose the Blueblood asshole for an asshole in front of your party so... your reaction seems ridiculous. Definitely turns out Jack took Declan's reaction wrong, but it still made me want to punch Declan.

I feel like the heist in the middle of the book really slowed things down. It did give Jack his rending opportunity -- which I was low-key worried about -- and gave Audrey and Kaldar an opporunity to talk without an audience. However, it was definitely a departure from the rest of the book and an excuse to deal with a chunk of the Hand.

So yeah, overall Fate's Edge is just alright. I'm definitely not a fan of the "will-they-won't-they-they-definitely-both-wanna" kind of thing stretched out as far as it was, but the rest was good.