Nicole N. (A Myriad of Books)'s Reviews > Masquerade of the Heart

I picked up an ARC of this book from the publisher’s booth at the North Texas Teen Book Festival.

Not my favorite but an enjoyable read nonetheless. My favorite part of this was Adrius’s utter yearning for Marlow. He had it real bad, lol.

This is a very twisty, gritty book, no real right vs wrong, no black and white. Just shades of grey and people trying to survive. It shows that no one—or many someones—shouldn’t have that much power to create or destroy without caring for those outside of their circle. This book was less flashy in terms of Evergarden than the first book, less parties and society and more dealings with gangs and distorting the darkness of the city.

I still enjoyed Marlow, Swift, Adrius, and yes, even Silvan at times. I think we could have done more with Gemma, considering her feelings for Amara. I actually really liked her and wanted to see more of this slow friendship between her and Marlow.

I’m not really convinced that Vale had true fatherly feelings for Marlow. I kind of wonder how he would have reacted if he knew about Marlow’s mother and how she revealed herself to Marlow. That in itself felt kind of… I don’t know—thrown in there? Marlow has such conflicting feelings about her mother and still loving her despite all that just kind of feels icky, lol.

An interesting series overall that I don’t think I would have picked up had I not gotten an ARC of this book.