Rating: 
Summary: Set-up but no delivery...
Review: Well, having read (and re-read) the previous books focusing on Esmay Suiza I was expecting this to be the latest installment in the her ongoing adventures. Silly me. This entire book was a set up for future novels regarding the Familias and (hopefully) Esmay. This was a very frustrating read since it was background and set-up solely. There was no apparent plot or direction. Hopefully all this frustration will be rewarded in future with a new novel which returns to the focus of the previous installments.
Rating: 
Summary: Scattered, doesn't stand alone
Review: While I enjoyed this book a bit, I think anyone who hasn't read AT LEAST "Once a Hero" and "Rules of Engangement" (if not the 3 other novels in this universe) will be confused and put off. The story jumps around a lot and much of it assumes a good bit of knowledge about the story's universe that was presented in earlier books (although Moon's too goo a writer not to at least provide some hints). My biggest complaint though, is that this book is obviously just a "set-up" book. Without revealing "spoilers", the best I can say is that the book ends with virtually every major conflict but one unresolved, and the one "resolved" conflict actually creates more conflict. If Moon can deliver a follow-up novel of her usual quality that resolves the dangling issues, I'll be happy.
Rating:
Summary: One Extended Prologue
Review: With Esmay Suiza on the cover of the book, I was expecting to read a novel with her as the central character. Instead, the book is like an extended prologue, setting up all the events and characters for the next novel. Esmay doesn't have much of a presence in this novel. Each character has short segments within chapters--no character is more important than another. This made it difficult to care much about any of the characters. I wanted to read more about Esmay but Moon was taking a different approach and I suppose you could say that the book was about the Familias Regnant and the changes it was undergoing. It just didn't make very compelling reading for me.
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