** spoiler alert ** As usual in her books, it would help if she would have a good editor to check it. There are several mistakes, or inconsistencies.
Her ideas are as for most of her books really good, but always the more you read the more you feel it could have been done better. I have to say, for this one is really the case. It started quite good, but then there are so many parts that are truly hard to believe. Sure its fantasy and vampires, but still. Plus she gets some historical facts a bit wrong. The more I read the more disappointed I got.

Many characters are hard to believe at many times during the book.

- Marius claims its hard to be lonely, far away from anyone else, because he has to keep Those who must be kept as a secret, nevertheless he reveals the "secret" to every second character he meets. He also claims to love desperately everyone, even if he just met them. He loves Pandora more than anyone else, but spends much more time describing Venice and Armand, even though before this book there is another one dedicated entirely to Armand's life.

- Bianca, was such a "cold blooded murderer" poisoning people all the time, but once she is a vampire, she cries everyday for no good reason. But she is strong enough to leave him, as soon as she sees he is willing to leave him for Pandora.

- The part when they are living in Venice is just not believable. A guy that only arrives home by night,while he shares a home with tons of people, all his pupils. She should have looked for some explanation, like having a house somewhere else and this house just to teach his pupils for instance. But somehow, from all the people living there, no one ever wonders why he only appears at night. But even worse, this you could still kind of forgive. But suddenly one pupil gets sick, he treats him, he gets better and from now on, instead of living with the pupils, he also only appears at night...just not believable.

- Maharet when she is imposing her will on Marius about Santino. But she cries like a baby when Santino explodes. What kind of leader is that?? Hard to believe she and her sister killed Akasha.

- They spend decades in the alps, but the guy he met in Venice is still alive, just kind of old...again, its like she didnt check what she wrote.

- She gets facts wrong, just as an example: To say that they visited the close by cities of Geneva and Prague. I am sorry but one should at least check a map before making such statements.

- Some historical facts are also hard to believe for the years she claims things happen. Like wide distribution of books in 1400, or people freely traveling from Venice to England and back, I would rather thing it was not simple at that time.

And this are just some examples, leaving out the grammatical mistakes.