Sarah J. Maas returns to her Crescent City series with House of Sky and Breath, an urban fantasy full of political maneuvering, scene-stealing secondary characters, and battles as intense as the chemistry between her protagonists: the half-human, half-fae Bryce and the angel Hunt. Maas writes doorstoppers, but as she expands her world and cast--even adding two more narrators--the intricate plotting and crackling dialogue make this a read worth staying up for.
The book opens with a prologue in which a rebel dies while freeing her young brother from a death camp, only for him to end up caught between the powerful Asteri who imprisoned him and the rebels who want to use him. When Bryce's surprise fiancé asks for help locating the boy, Bryce and her allies have to decide which side they're on.
Bryce and Hunt disrupted the world order in House of Earth and Blood and are laying as low as a Starborn princess and the Shadow of Death can. Unfortunately, it appears they can't kill two archangels, save the city from demons and generate enough power to light up the entire metropolis without people noticing. Especially when one of those archangels was the governor of Lunathion, and his replacement is about to arrive.
With a few twists and a killer setup for the next book, Maas proves as adept at writing adult fantasy as the young adult books for which she's known. Readers will be eager for the next installment. --Suzanne Krohn, librarian and freelance reviewer