All Hail Chaos

Time of Iron #2

by Sarah Rees Brennan

All Hail Chaos is Sarah Rees Brennan’s wicked, unmissable sequel to Long Live Evil ("delicious, subversive" –Leigh Bardugo), one of the New York Times "Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of 2024." 

THE EMPEROR IS HERE. AND SHE MADE HIM WORSE.

Rae is a fantasy reader who’s been transported to her favorite fictional world of swords and sorcery, castles and monsters. Playing the villainess, she thought she could change the narrative, but this version of the plot is far much more deadly than the one she knew.

Her friends are on the the Cobra shelters in an eerie manor haunted by dark secrets, while Emer and Lia stoke a revolution in the gutters. Undead armies roam the kingdom, raiders camp at the city gates, and the irresistible emperor – Rae’s favorite character ever, now possibly the greatest monster in the land – wants her to be his evil queen. 

Romantic in fiction, complicated in reality. What’s a villainess to do? Time for wicked bargains and fake engagements, in a fantasy where the most dangerous thing you can do is believe in someone.

Genres: Fantasy, Romance, Romantasy, Audiobook, Adult, Fiction, Fantasy Romance

480 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 12, 2026

About the author

Sarah Rees Brennan is Irish and currently lives in Dublin. She's been writing YA books for more than ten years, which is terrifying to contemplate! She hopes you (yes you!) find at least one of them to be the kind of book you remember.

Reviews

[Brend · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing things happening at the throne room right now!


“Behold: the bad bitch she’d bagged by being a worse bitch.”


The Beauty Dipped in Blood and I don’t argue; she commands me not to kill and I simple cut off tongues




Now back to Sabrina reporting on our local gay year-long situationship:


“When the king’s justice fell on them both, to die beside someone – when Marius had expected to live and die alone – would not be so bad.”


“Eric said he had learned of Marius’s world from a book, and seemed to believe he was now inside that book.
This was charming, but ridiculous: everybody would notice if the world was made of paper”
Could a not real person have hair this good, Cobra????



Alright! Back to the Castle!

Rae: IT’S RAINING SIDEWAYS!


“Now she considered the matter, the phrase “body count” did imply people should feel guilty.
The Emperor, unfamiliar with the concept of guilt, smiled. “Oh, I see. Not hundreds and hundreds of people, then.”
“Glad to hear it.”
“That takes much longer than killing someone.”
“How much longer—” began Rae,”

Let’s find a girlfriend for my Fiancee!


“Not even a sassy redhead,” Rae murmured.
“Red is actually a very unusual hair colour,” a woman said in an offended voice.
“Not in books!”

“The Emperor nodded. “I’m disgusted by the accusation. I don’t make assassination attempts. When I assassinate, I succeed.”


Oh Pio…


Alright... what about the city? What’s going on there?


Umm, Lady Lia?



Emer?




Alright, let’s take a look at the Valerius now.


With Eric

And Marius

And a new (old?) friend (foe?)

How could we forget about shit-daddy...


“Marius asked, “Is Lucius bothering you, Eric?”
The Cobra swallowed. “Yes.”




Oh Caracalla, the icon that you are




“The gods might fail, but not Marius.”



Back to the Castle with the War Report



Maybe something will bring us peace in book 3


Or not

[Olivia]

me checking everyday for this sequel release date has paid off. Cannot wait WOOP

[lost in epilogue | ཐི༏ཋྀ​​݁ ₊ ݁ . · Rating 4 out of 5]

People said about their favourite character, I can fix him, but Rae knew better...
She had made Key worse.

that cliffhanger was diabolical I NEED BOOK 3 STAT!!!!!

overall, i didn't love this as much as book 1 (pacing is kind of bogged down by multiple journeys and lots of new characters), but i still had a good time.

caracalla, i'm sorry girl but the secondhand embarrassment, oof. marius, you are still unintentionally hilarious. lia, fuck you. ivor, i'm intrigued. cobra and rae, still my fav little villains.

and key. my man. my man CLOAKED in red flags. in red BANNERS. i hope you go even crazier in book 3.

“I want to be the villain of your story, and I want you to love it. I know how to make the story go my way.”

[Melanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

October 28, 2025
FYI, release is now showing May 12, 2026 on retail sites…

Sept 9, 2025
Release date got pushed back to April 2026 😵

May 22, 2025
Not all of us waiting for September to come just to see the release date get pushed back to Feb 2026 😭
But hoping Sarah's surgery goes well and she makes a full recovery!

[Tara · Rating 4 out of 5]

“I CAN FIX HIM!!” I scream as they take me out the back and shoot me.

this was delightfully wicked and deliciously chaotic. I love these characters so much through all their terrible decision-making and unhinged dysfunction.

we pick up with Rae following the events of the last book: she has accidentally brought about the rise of the Emperor a bit too soon in the story, and also she may have egregiously messed up his character development a bit (or a lot.) however she quickly hatches a new plan to fix the story. will she be successful? if the last book is anything to go by, probably not.

I love Rae in all of her scheming and plotting, despite how misguided some of her decisions might be. she’s learned from the lessons of the last book but at the same time still making similar mistakes. she still thinks she can use her knowledge of tropes to “gameify” the story, just this time with the intention of fixing it. she realised how much of a mistake she made last time in not seeing Key as a person, however this time around she’s still not really thinking of him as a person, just as a character that matters rather than one that doesn’t. BUT. I still adore her. characters who make an absolute shitty mess of things with the best of intentions >>>>

Key is as entertaining as ever, but even more unhinged and insane this time around. his yandere tendencies are on full display now and he’s quite terrifying with his newfound godlike powers, but at his core he’s still just as desperate to be loved and eager to please. to say that his and Rae’s relationship is complicated would be an understatement. however I am rooting for them despite it all!! please give them a happy ending sarah 😭

I also loved following the adventures of Marius and the Cobra. Marius is so desperate to serve it’s insane!! honestly this whole book is filled with characters whose love language is acts of service. sarah rees brennan clearly knows what’s up because it is the SEXIEST love language.

will be forever mad about that cliffhanger ending and the emotional devastation I have been left with.

thank you to netgalley for the arc!

[Marta]

Gimme this book, I need to know what next for my wicked boy (it's Key, okey, he's my wicked, murderous boyfriend and I will fight everyone for him) 😭😭

[Billie's Not So Secret Diary · Rating 2 out of 5]

All Hail Chaos
by Sarah Rees Brennan
Time of Iron #2
Fantasy
NetGalley Audio
Narrated by Moira Quirk/Shane East
Pub Date: May 12, 2026
Hachette Audio/Orbit
Ages: 18+

After being transported into a fictional world, Rae played the villainess character of the story, thinking she could change the book for the better, but it did the opposite, and now the 'fictional' friends she made are on the run from the new, powerful Emperor, who can control the dead, and wants her to be his evil queen.

To save her 'fictional' friends and herself, along with getting back to her world, Rae is going to have to stay by her betrothed's side until she can set things right, or make her escape.


As this is the second book of a series, I don't want to give too much away. The story was ok. There was a lot of what felt like circular rambling that didn't do anything to move the story along, so it was a very slow listen, one where I had to speed up the narrator because I wanted to get the book done. (Did take a break from this to listen and finish another book!)

Another thing that made this a slow and irritating read is the number of characters! There are too many!!! And that took away from the central idea: a girl transported into a book. I feel for the narrator, Moira Quirk, who did a good job, because she had to portray all of these characters, male and female, but the second narrator, Shane East, only had to do one, and I believe it was only one little segment, so I can't give a complete opinion on his talent. I get why it was thought to be a good idea, but pointless in my opinion. Should have had East do all the male and Quirk the female.

Even though it is a major cliff hanger and I'm curious what is going to happen, I don't know if I'll find out. It's started to get lame, repetitive, left the intended plot, and feels like it was written for a young audience, even though there's adult content and violence, some on the graphic side (mostly due to Rae changing the story).

2 Stars

[Mai ༊*·˚]

almost done with this... and have come to the conclusion that I still need more portal fantasy 🙂‍↕️




____________

Thank you to Orbit Books for the ARC.

[Paz · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars
Oh, man, this sucks. I was so excited for this book, my pre-order (from January 2025) is on its way. I was so looking forward to this sequel, and though I did not love the first book, I absolutely loved the characters, the friendships and romances. So I was excited to continue with their journey, sadly, it did not deliver.

All Hail Chaos picks up right where Long Live Evil ended, Key is now the Emperor and Rae her evil bride. Though she is still looking for the ways to change the narrative, save her friends and find a way to come back to her sister in the real world, an invasion awaits. War is coming, gods appear, new plans are hurriedly hatched while trying to survive the weird mix of adoration and hatred that Key feels now for Rae.
Meanwhile, Emer and Lia are hiding in the Cauldron, and the Cobra and Marius are traveling to the Valerius ancient home, the one place the white knight is scared of.

This book suffers from second book syndrome. Though there are three main plots happening, Rae's is a mess. It's repetitive from book one, it's confusing as Key as the Emperor loses all his charm and charisma from book one and his relationship with Rae suffers so much from it. I feel like he was such a deep character in LLE, even though he's painted at first glance as this sociopath minion, he had so much going on. In this book, his actions, violence and words feel hollow. And Rae doesn't know how to react which makes her act like a horror movie character, making the worst silly decisions over and over again, making the spectator (or reader) so mad about it. This is book two, I can't take another of her inner monologue thinking "Oh, I should tell him the truth, I should be kind to him, I should do x" only to choose to lie once again or answer with the silliest comeback.
The same mistakes from book one, the same inner thoughts, all over this book, I was done halfway through.

As for Emer and Lia's arc, there's a big chunk in this book where they barely make an appearance. Though we get to learn both of their real identities and personalities, I feel like they were barely there. Their arc was by far the least developed, though I liked their last scene.

The one story I was really looking forward, however, was the journey to the Valerius manor with Marius and the Cobra. It was my favorite part, though I feel like there was a lack of resolution that felt like it was needed here and the author chooses to purposely leave it for book three. It frustrated me. I feel like this book messed up with all the ships, and though I like the decision of introducing conflict and other potential love interests ( i.e. not to settle with the obvious partner established in book one right away), I still feel disappointed. Maybe because it happened to all three main ships so it feels shallow, formulaic and an unnecessary way to stretch their tension for book three.

As for the plot. I was not a fan of. Like I said, Rae makes so many mistakes recycled from book one, we have another queen competition with a couple of side characters that end up not mattering at all. The whole invasion is background noise until the end and yet I found myself so bored reading those scenes. The worldbuiling is just... poorly written to say the least.

The side characters from Long Live Evil are barely here, except for the Prime Minister, and his pov doesn't end up giving something new or necessary.

Overall this was a disappointing sequel. A lot of the same beats, none of the emotional vulnerability of the first book. Key, who was one of my favorites, lost his charm, and not because of him becoming evil, but because of his vague motivations and actions towards Rae. Rae, once a spunky main character, frustrated me to no end with the never ending cycle of making bad decisions despite being very aware she's messing everything up.
I wish we had more of Emer, I wish we had more of the main characters together, but because all of the pairs were out and about in different places the camaderie, the banter, and the overall fun of the first book was missing.

As for the audiobook and narrator, Moira does a great job maintaining the tone from LLE. She's fun and sassy, though if I'm being honest there are a couple of (male) characters I did not like how she portrayed. However, the experience was fun to listen to, there's a second narrator for a very short chapter and I was really enjoying his portrayal too.

Thanks to Hachette Audio and NetGalley for the advanced copy of the audiobook.

[Megan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Huge thanks to Orbit for the advance reader’s copy in exchange for an honest review!

If Long Live Evil (which I loved with my whole heart) was a campy, sparkling piece of costume jewelry, All Hail Chaos is a darkly glimmering black diamond. This picks up right where LLE left off, and Rae (and the reader) is deeply unsure how darling murderous puppy Key feels about her after she feigned nonchalance during his murder to save herself. This uncertainty — and the knowledge that her misunderstanding of the original novel led to this predicament — mean that Rae is on edge throughout the book, constantly trying to figure Key out and stay one step ahead of everyone else, and she can't exuberantly play with the story the way she did in LLE.

One thing that hasn’t changed is Rae’s metafictional awareness: heroines have demurely sized breasts, fake engagements lead to falling in love for real, readers will forgive all sorts of villainous deeds if committed by someone attractive. Sarah Rees Brennan is also clearly marvelously well-read, and sprinkles paraphrases of famous lines from classic literature — from Kerouac to Tennyson to Marvell — throughout the story. You’d have to have been an English major to catch all the references, but they (and Rae’s gimlet awareness of romantasy tropes) are delightful Easter eggs.

Our intrepid cast of secondary characters spend most of the novel away from all but their love interests: Emer and Lia are hiding in the Cauldron, the Golden Cobra and Lord Marius are off to the Valerius estate to save Marius' little sister, and Rae of course is at the Palace on the Edge with Key. The Cobra and Rae exchange letters, though, as they piece together how the original story has changed and figure out what does and does not work to as they try to fix it.

The romance that had me kicking my feet the most (to my surprise!) was Eric / Marius. We got just a hint at the end of LLE that Marius might have caught feelings, and those feelings have put down deep roots at this point. He doesn't yet seem to have admitted his feelings to himself, however, despite Eric doing his best to nudge him in that direction.

Lia… Lia I have thoughts about! Really intrigued to see where her character goes in Book 3.

Speaking of book 3… Sarah Rees Brennan has once again ended the book on a MASSIVE CLIFFHANGER (immediately following a pretty big unexpected reveal), and I am simply beside myself at how long I'll have to wait for it 😭

***
“Book boyfriends: you get older, they stay the same age. It gets awkward.”

“some readers defined “morally grey” as “a remorseless murderer who is good-looking”.

“It’s nice in a way, how books change. If the magic and illumination isn’t in the story any more, the magic and illumination was always in you. The story caught a reflection of you at the right time.”

“Treating everybody in the world as if they mattered would be disastrous for the economy.”

“Despite the horrors, people fell back into living their lives in the same old way. They wanted to talk about change but remain comfortable. Surely a true king or a just god would come soon, but tomorrow, not today. The enemy might be at the gates, but they surely wouldn’t get inside. No matter who sat the throne, surely those in charge had everything under control.”

“She loved the wolf-souled, who saw everything except for reason, who knew the only thing to do in a senseless world is start a howl of defiance echoing through the sky. The only ones for Rae were the wild ones, burning with a fire that would light up or burn down a world, but never go out.” (This is a paraphrase of Kerouac!)

“This type of heroine was never like the other girls. Ironically, this made them all very similar.”

“Heroines were always showing an anachronistic disregard for social class!”

“She held her brother’s sword as close as a childhood toy, and whispered, “I am half sick of waiting, Marius.” (Tennyson!)

“Mention of small breasts was perfectly acceptable and overlooked in books, while any character who happened to have a large chest was regarded as obtrusively pneumatic. Heroines didn’t get their tits out.”

“Half agony, half hope” (Austen!)

“That was the problem with a villain who would kill anybody, Rae thought with terrible clarity. You could pretend this was a video game, with every victim a faceless nonentity, but a villain who would kill anybody would eventually kill somebody you cared about. Someone brave and beloved, and that death would cast a light on all the other deaths and show their horror.”

“Listen, I wanted to make one thing clear. I know how fake engagements usually go, but please do not fall in love with me. I don’t mean that as a fun challenge. I have enough to deal with.”

“Had we but world enough and time” (Marvell!)

“I saw the red flags and I said red’s my favourite colour.”

“What a generous heart this woman had. Affection to spare for all the countless men to whom she was betrothed.”

[Emma (howlsmovinglibrary) · Rating 5 out of 5]

A four if I'm thinking with my head, a five if I'm thinking with my heart.

This definitely feels like a second book, in that it's laying a lot (a lot) of groundwork that will see its pay off in a future instalment. It felt a little like Rae lost track of her braincells for a second there, in order to rally them all in the final third. I'm not trying to critique her for being stupid or acting unideally, it more just felt the book had to keep her in a plateaued state for longer in order to achieve its plot goals. I missed the genre savviness of Book 1, but that's bc genre savviness is my favourite thing.

But the character work still shone through so hard. And.... the good news is that this must mean there's a third book. Goodreads doesn't know that yet, but I do 💕✨️

[Phoe · Rating 5 out of 5]

I crave this. Give me fresh villainy. Give me more sly references to Shakespeare, Taylor Swift and memes.

[Rosa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really wish this would’ve just been a duology. This book felt very much like a filler. The first half half was very drawn out and repetitive and the second one very convoluted. I still had fun, but honestly mostly cared about Eric and Marius. Still looking forward to the last book in this series.

[Robin]

i legit can’t stop staring at the cover and i NEED this NOWWWW

[Hanner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yeah it had issues but idgaf, five outta five I love my vipers so bad.

Thank you, SRB, for another banger cast of characters. As usual they’re so loveable they basically sit beside you as you read, laughing and poking fun at themselves with you. I hope book three is stuffed with deeply unserious reunions and a horde of disgusting, sickeningly happy endings.

[Chelsey $$$ · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’m not sure how to rate this book because I liked some parts, but overall it felt like a huge waste of potential, and that fact is making me want to rant. Sooo much slow burn groundwork laid out in the first book that was all totally negated in the second, amounting to nothing. All three relationships that were just budding have now taken several steps backward (two seem pretty over at this point, in fact).

This entire book could be summed up with “and everyone refused to communicate a single thing”. Not a single feeling was shared across all three couples. I’ve actually been daydreaming about the tearful apology Rae SHOULD have given to Key 😭 At one point she THOUGHT the literal most perfect thing she could have said to Key but said nothing -.- And don’t even get me started on the goddam TRUTH POTION that amounted to LITERALLY NOTHING. Uuuughh!!!

I had been salivating thinking about the romance between the evil emperor and the fake villainess that I was going to get when this book came out. But the two didn’t even interact until the 50% mark, and probably had 4 solid interactions the whole book. And half of the interactions were them fooling around rather than saying anything.

The biggest strength of the first book was largely missing from the second, in my opinion. There was so much heart with the found family aspect, and the relationship-building/ breaking down each other’s walls in the first, while the second was mainly everyone building up their walls again and drifting apart.

While I appreciated that the first book had an actual plot and multiple people to root for, the second actually took it too far with the plot being so spread out, and with so many people and POVs to bounce between. It felt like it took forEVER to get anywhere with any of the plots. And all I actually wanted was to see Rae and Key interacting with each other.

So, in summation, the whole book kinda bummed me out and refused to give me what I wanted. Maybe I misunderstood and was expecting a fantasy romance but got a fantasy instead. The first book was my favorite book of the year and has lived rent-free in my head. The second had some good aspects that were overshadowed by my general disappointment. I will, of course, eagerly await the third…

[✧˚ Luna ˚✧]

My motivation to survive until September 2025 tbh

upd: now it’s February 2026?? Girl, I’m already tired of surviving

upd2: well, now the book comes out in May 2026, and I’m not sure I can keep holding up, but that’s fine, no rush 🫩

upd3: I can’t wait to finally read it!!! But work makes it impossible for the next two weeks 😭

[Denise · Rating 5 out of 5]

*4.5 stars rounded to 5*

Thank you to Hachette Audio and NetGalley for providing access to this audiobook. Thank you to Orbit Books, Angela Man and Sarah Rees Brennen for gifting me this finished copy of All Hail Chaos. All opinions expressed are solely my own.

All Hail Chaos devastated me emotionally and I enjoyed every moment of it.

Picking up after the conclusion of Long Live Evil, the villainous Vipers are separated, the Emperor has risen too soon with: the ability to control the dead, more than a small measure of anger and a proposal of marriage. Rae is left without her allies and with the difficult task of trying to get the story back on track despite numerous efforts that impede her.

Fake engagements, hungry zombies and political intrigue are prevalent, literary and media references are sprinkled throughout and the epigraphs are once again present at the beginning of each chapter, providing an interesting contrast in how the story should have unfolded.

The narration of the audiobook-which I began listening to and then ended up doing an immersive read when I received the physical book-is absolutely splendid. While the book was about medium length, I thought the pacing was good and that the story never felt as though it was dragging. Moira Quirk voices numerous characters-both male and female-and infuses them with accents and inflections that are all very distinct.

Her voice for Rae was wonderful and the moments where she was at her most vulnerable and emotional were some of my favorites. Shane East also provided narration for a brief interlude and did a great job with an interpretation of a particular character.

Although it was wonderful having the characters interact with each another in the previous novel, the interludes between Rae and Key, Marius and The Golden Cobra and Lia and Emer add more depth to their characters, their relationships with one another and their roles within the story.

Yearning, manipulation, hidden truths, power, betrayal…these relationships are tested within All Hail Chaos and I’m both anticipating and worried regarding how they will eventually play out.

Rae remains the heart of the story as the consequences of her actions in Long Live Evil come home to roost in the form of an even more unhinged Key and an unexpected war ready to tear the already-precarious situation in Eyam completely asunder. With her life in very real danger, Rae attempts to push the story down its intended path and juggles her complex relationship with Key.

I was rooting for Rae throughout All Hail Chaos, as her planning and efforts to do the “right” thing only lead to further complications. She is also quite humorous, even while the world burns around her. Her reflections upon her role as the villain of the story in both Eyam and the real world are particularly poignant, as they emphasize how easily a person can be deemed a villain in the eyes of others based upon appearance or due to the misfortune of simply becoming ill and needing the support of others.

Rae’s experiences being ignored, discarded and then vilified for not just accepting terrible treatment while trying to survive cancer were painfully relatable and I personally viewed her her need to try and “fix” her mistakes as another method of trying to regain some of the control that had been taken from her.

She, Key and Marius also share such similarities in believing themselves unworthy of love due to their unique backgrounds and yet still possess the capacity to care for others even to their personal detriment.

Basically, almost everyone in All Hail Chaos needs therapy and a hug.

Also, that ending was absolutely unbelievable and although it was foreshadowed, I still was loudly saying “What?” as I turned the page. Nevertheless, I’m still hoping for a happy ending,

But even if that doesn't occur, I'm still thrilled that I was able to read this series.

The Acknowledgments in the physical copy of All Hail Chaos are beautiful and candid. I am very touched that Sarah Rees Brennen chose to share so much of herself in Rae’s journey.

[Aldi · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was an exhausting read. Look, Sarah Rees Brennan already wrote one portal fantasy with a cheeky side of parody; it’s called In Other Lands and it hit all its notes perfectly.

This… is an overly self-aware mess. I could just refer to my review of the first book (minus some of the benefit of the doubt), because honestly, it all still applies. Heroine stumbles into book world, jumps to dozens of wrong conclusions in trying to manipulate the story she thinks she knows, messes everything up, check. Entire chapters are spent waxing meta about fantasy tropes, writing foibles, and narrative structures, check (in chapter 5, Rae muses cleverly about the concept of deus ex machina, then yells loudly at thin air until a deity manifests, then smugly congratulates herself on having made deus ex machina work for her, ffs - we're talking Dark Tower era Stephen King levels of cringe). Writing style goes about finding any tiny trace of nuance and smashing it to smithereens with the hammer of tell-don't-show, check. Characters act like complete idiots confidently misinterpreting every single thing that happens and joyfully embracing every wilful misunderstanding that could possibly be construed out of any situation, check. Overwrought prose wrestles with aggressive snark on every page, check. Is it whimsical, is it overly dramatic, is it secretly poignant (Because Cancer)? Well, it clearly wants to be all, simultaneously. It wants to be an original portal fantasy AND a clever parody AND a treatise on grey morality AND a sad story about a lost and angry girl in the real world who was abandoned when she got sick. And they just don’t mesh.

There was so much repetition and tonal whiplash in this one; the first hundred pages or so are essentially just a load of waffling about how sequels work and what they shouldn’t do, and then the rest of the book goes ahead and plunges into all the things that sequels shouldn’t do, but that doesn’t make it clever, just exasperating.

The most annoying thing is there is actually a fun, smart, emotionally intriguing fantasy at the heart of this; it’s just being bogged down by all this self-indulgent snarky meta crap that keeps pulling you out of the story by… non-stop talking about the story. I actually love a good portal fantasy, but this is so far up its own arse in pursuit of witty observations about its own genre that the actual story gets lost entirely.

I’ll read the third one when it comes out because by now this is basically a sunk-cost fallacy for me (surely the third one will yank it back into something actually semi-enjoyable, right? RIGHT? if nothing else, I want Key to burn down the whole world and laugh) but you better believe I’ll get it from the library.

[Suirene · Rating 3 out of 5]

...what happened? 😭
I was SO excited for this but this book was literally all chaos, just like the title says.

Every single character is off having their own little adventure/problem and it became way too much, especially with the constant POV switches. Like I’m sorry but why was I suddenly reading the prime minister’s POV!???

Every time I thought “okay NOW it’s finally getting good,” Rae would just repeat the exact same mistakes or continue lying for no reason. Girl PLEASE learn something.

The whole thing honestly felt like a filler book. there were moments I enjoyed and some emotional scenes still hit, but overall this felt messy.

[Ashley]

I sort of love this cover.

[Maya]

WAHHHH I'm waiting!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Jamedi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review originally on JamReads

All Hail Chaos is the second book in the romantic fantasy series Time of Iron, written by Sarah Rees Brennan and published by Orbit Books. An excellent sequel that picks where its predecessor left the plot, embracing its strengths, especially regarding to how well Brennan executes the whole meta-fantasy idea while intercalating funnier bits alongside the road, and giving us a marvelous story that sets more pieces in motion in preparation for what promises to be deliciously chaotic finale.

We pick up Rae after the events of the first book: the Emperor has returned too soon for the original plot, and Rae might have messed up a bit with the character development, making him probably the most unhinged character in the whole series. Rae knows she's practically on borrowed time, so she quickly develops a new plan to see if she can take the story back to the rails; however, many things might end shattering it, and this time she won't have the help of her allies, as most of them are on the run.

At this point in the series, you might expect certain things from this novel, and Brennan doesn't disappoint: not only how she weaves the own concept of meta-fantasy, and how Rae knows she's into a fantasy series (side note, I always think of the phrase: "in a horror film, a character doesn't know they are on it, so that's why they take bad decisions", but that doesn't prevent her from trying to scheme and take risks, trying to take the story back to the point she knew, but we also have an excellent example of character development in most of the cast. In particular, I think it's really interesting how Brennan tackles loneliness and how illness can be the cause, how your support net can vanish when the circumstances goes awry; but also, I already loved Key, and this unhinged, almost psychopathic version of him got me to laugh so so much, even if it mights frighten me a bit.

The worldbuilding continues mimicking what you could have expected from a classical fantasy series, but subtly introducing those changes that have been caused by our villainess and, at least in my opinion, it slowly shifts towards more modern fantasy tropes (and especially, towards the end, it picks one of my favourite ones).
In terms of pacing, I practically flew across the pages, as Brennan keeps your attention always high, maintaining the reader at the edge of their seat, doing an excellent job at balancing the different POVs that are in movement during the plot.

I loved All Hail Chaos, and honestly, if you are an avid fantasy reader and love a bit of witty humour combined with the twists of the own bones of what makes fantasy in a story, I seriously recommend the Time of Iron series. I can't wait to see what happens in Kill Your Darlings!

[Maaike · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’ll start this off by saying that I wasn’t the biggest fan of book one. But with such a unique and interesting plot, I just had to read book two.

Sadly, the same issues I had with book one came back in this one. The writing, especially the modern references but also the endless descriptions and nicknames that were supposed to be funny but fell flat quite often for me. At one point the main character was called ‘my Ferarri of darkness’ and I just had to take a break lol.

Besides that it also suffered from the second book curse that was even talked about in the book itself. There is quite a bit going on but by the end of the book we’re not much farther along than at the start. And then suddenly there was so much going on but all crammed into the last couple of chapters that I was only left confused instead of desperate for more.

I’ve accepted by now that this series just isn’t for me and I’ll have to ask my friend to recap book 3 so I can still enjoy the messy plot twists and reveals.

Thank you to NetGalley and Orbit for the arc in exchange for an honest review!

[Kate Victoria RescueandReading · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve been creeping NetGalley hoping to snag an audio arc of this second book in the Time of Iron saga. Finally! So thankful!

It was soooo good!!! I don’t care how many red flags the emperor gives off, he’s my ride or die, I feel for him. While I enjoyed most of the other POVs, it was hard to tear away from the action at times to a more chill section of the story. I really didn’t think we needed Caracalla’s insights at all. The ending was a total cliff hanger and killed me! I don’t know how I’m supposed to wait for the next book 😭

Definitely going to be replaying this audiobook in the next month to see if I missed any details, there is A LOT going on, and we get to explore more of the world too.

Moira Quirk is an amazing story teller. Her voices of all the different people are incredible. While I love Shane East’s timbre and depth, I don’t think I see him as the emperor’s voice unfortunately.

Don’t miss this next book in the series! It’s been so worth the wait to dive back into Eyam and its heroes, villains, and gods.

Thank you to NetGalley, the author, the narrators, and Orbit/Hachette Audio for a copy!

[Emma · Rating 5 out of 5]

After being transported into her favorite book series, Rae thought it would be easy to complete one task and reclaim her life in the real world before the cancer that's been ravaging her body for years finally kills her. Instead, Rae was alarmed to find that the characters she knew as fictional were painfully real people.

Now Rae has to deal with the catastrophic consequences of her own actions.

Rae's favorite character the Once and Future Emperor is here. But he's come into his power too early and he is far too angry--especially at Rae. As she keeps trying to fix him and get him the happy ending he deserves, Rae is forced to admit that she made him worse. Which makes things worse for everyone else in the kingdom.

Rae's friend The Golden Cobra is in hiding with Marius Valerius, the Last Hope. The Cobra hopes to change things for the tragic Valerius line. But all Marius wants is for someone else to take charge instead of forcing him to acknowledge uncomfortable feelings he can't even name. Emer and Lia hide in the poorest parts of the city but although they are together they have very different goals with Emer struggling to help their friends while Lia grasps at the power that keeps eluding her.

In a world where the dead walk and lies travel through the court faster than beasts can take to the skies, the truth is a very dangerous thing. Especially when telling the truth means revealing your heart in All Hail Chaos (2026) by Sarah Rees Brennan.

All Hail Chaos is the second book in Rees Brennan's Time of Iron trilogy, picking up moments after the dramatic conclusion of book one, Long Live Evil. The story shifts perspectives between the main players as they are scattered throughout the kingdom dealing with the aftermath of the emperor's return. Epigraphs at the beginning of each chapter once again highlight the differences between the narrative before Rae's arrival began to shape the story into something new.

Dismayed to find herself still within the pages of her favorite book, Rae observes "Great sequels took risks and got complicated. Great sequels did everything great first books did, backwards and in high heels. Great sequels upped the stakes, the tension and especially the body count." Which All Hail Chaos does admirably with a repeat of the Queen's Trials from book one but this time in a bloodier form all while the Emperor runs riot through a court that knows they need his power as much as they despise his presence.

With a cast bumbling through their interpersonal relationships with mixed results, All Hail Chaos continues to explore themes of agency and feminism within a fantasy framework. The story also asks, repeatedly, what it means when a reader is changed by a story and, given the magic system at play, what it means when those same readers try to change the story in turn. With sky high stakes and danger at every turn, Rae has her worked cut out for her as she tries to save her favorite character and herself. Rae continues to lean into her villainess persona even as she works heroically to get the narrative back on track reminding readers that even the blackest hearts can sometimes change with the right plot devices at play.

All Hail Chaos is everything a reader could want in a sequel. Come for the beloved characters, stay to see everything blow up in their faces and anxiously wait for the sequel. Highly recommended.

Possible Pairings: The Witch Who Trades With Death by CM Alongi, This Kingdom Will Not Kill Me by Ilona Andrews, The Empress by Kristin Cast, Kill the Farm Boy by Delilah S. Dawson, Mistress of Lies by KM Enright, The Deathless One by Emma Hamm, Violet Thistlewaite Is Not a Villain Anymore by Emily Krempholtz, The Half King by Melissa Landers, The Scarlet Throne by Amy Leow, Assitant to the Villain by Hannah Nicole Maehrer, Anji Kills a King by Evan Leikam, The Awakening by Caroline Peckham, Going Postal by Terry Pratchett, Dreadful by Caitlin Rozakis, Starter Villain by John Scalzi, Fang Fiction by Kate Stayman-London, How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying by Django Wexler

*An advance copy of this title was provided by the publisher for review consideration*

[mikaela (spinebreaker) · Rating 3 out of 5]

that man is in leopard print armor you cannot change my mind.

[Maddi Harwood · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.25⭐️ That reveal on the last page was absolutely DIABOLICAL, Sarah!!! I loved this so much. If you enjoyed book one, I highly recommend picking this one up. The writing style remains one of my favorite parts of this series.

While the pacing felt a little uneven at times, and parts of the story seemed focused on setting the stage for book three, the character development more than made up for it. I grew so attached to so many of these characters, and I’m already desperate to see where the story goes next.

[ansharah ♡ *・°☆ · Rating 3 out of 5]

[3.5]
well this time there were plot twists i didn’t see coming at all, but i guess the issue is i didn’t like most of them. i was wary at the beginning when there was that huge cast list and i’d say i was right for it. there is a lot going on here and i don’t know if it all works. that’s not to say that this isn’t a good sequel. the prose is clever and funny and even improved from the first book. the characters i love are still here. it took a lot of risks, it had some incredible moments, it made me feel so much. at the beginning i adored it. by the end however i felt like i was reading a train wreck. which yeah, maybe that’s the point. i get that things are supposed to become the darkest they’ll ever get in this book.

maybe it’s just my own preference — i’d probably be on alice’s side because marius was the only thing that didn’t frustrate me by the end. speaking of alice, she’s one of the twists i did get, and she and caracalla are two of the new characters i actually liked. i don’t think she needed as much pagetime as she got but i liked her. others, however, i didn’t feel much about. it was a fight to care about the rest of the new characters, especially the tagar ones. and this includes merel or whoever, who by the time he showed up i was like??? who the fuck cares about this guy rn marius’s mom just died 😭 also i did feel incredibly betrayed and irritated that eric slept with merel. like it’s fine ok i want a slowburn, i get that eric’s scared of everything with marius, and neither of them have promised each other anything like that. there’s a lot of good set-up for the third book, if srb goes there. my problem is i just don’t have as much trust that she will, or that it’ll be done well. i’m disappointed that this is how eric’s side culminated, because i thought marius’s storyline was the best part of the book up until eric and marius separated. yeah it does feel kind of irrelevant but it also feels important to marius’s character and lucius was fun and ofc marius and eric were so good (although admittedly im biased, they’re my faves). i was literally kicking my feet and giggling over them and then i was like wait what the fuck.

i’m also disappointed with emer and lia. i had such high hopes in the beginning, but their storyline was so disconnected. it was no wonder pages and pages would go by before it was emer’s pov, because there just wasn’t anything really going on there. then all of a sudden forge strike is kissing emer and it comes out of nowhere and im not against it but it’s confusing. we learn little about emer and lia’s past relationship and we see little of them renewing their feelings for each other. in fact we barely see lia until she puts on the fucking cursed jewel which i HATED. i HATE CURSED JEWELS!!! genuinely always one of my least favourite tropes ever in the world. i wanted more development about lia’s character, her relationship with emer, her relationship with rae. both of them barely did anything until the end. i liked them together at the end of book 1, i wanted to love them, but i didn’t even get the chance to. i do think emer being a valerius bastard is a great twist tho.

meanwhile rae and key’s plotline…i didn’t know where it was going until the end and i was let-down tbh. so many things felt repetitive from the first book when rae is supposed to have learned from her mistakes not make more illogical ones that i have to struggle to understand (SEE WHY I HATE CURSED JEWELS?? they take away the actual characters’ choices because you can blame everything on the jewel but unlike possession it’s just annoying to know that everything could be easily solved if they just took off the jewels). rae should be smarter than this! it really felt like she should have learned her lesson about villains after meeting the cobra and the nemeths and realizing that though she thought they were villains, they actually have unexpected layers. she even sympathizes with rahela in the first book. but now she’s like well yes these people are real but i’m a villain so i can’t change anything. like what??? if everyone is real everyone can make their own choices the whole point is that they’re not characters trapped into tropes and thereby lacking autonomy!

there’s also this passage that rubbed me the wrong way where srb has rae talk about the typical shy and underdeveloped female protagonist in this dismissive way, and i agree with a lot of what’s being said, but the way it’s being said feels so mean-spirited for no reason, as though the problem is that kind of girl rather than the societal standards that would make that character common. i’m sure that’s not the intention, it’s more of a small issue bugged me because since rae is so isolated, we also lack scenes of her with other women who aren’t her competition or enemy. both ninell and glacia, for instance, aren’t important or developed the way the nemeth twins were. i missed rae’s interactions with the nemeths, emer, and lia. there’s also some potential with rahela’s mother and grandmother coming in, but it doesn’t go anywhere. however we do have scenes of rae with vasilisa, which i loved. unfortunately vasilisa’s imprisoned for most of the book, and key’s actions there add to the list of things i personally can’t defend (along with fab 😔) because the point of how a character like the emperor is supposed to love is that he tries to do what his love wants, and rae didn’t want vasilisa or fab hurt.

and i really do love rae so so much, but i couldn’t fathom why she didn’t try to help key in realizing his actions were wrong by trying to explain that she realized she was wrong for her own actions. she could at least have explained that when she kissed the king in front of him, she was only trying to manipulate him to free key (key CONSTANTLY brings this up it’s clear it’s what hurts him most so WHY does rae never say, hey i was crushed when you died i never wanted you to die i’m so sorry for what i’ve done). i’m not expecting her to try to be good to him, i realise she believes she can’t be because she doesn’t think she’s worthy of love and doesn’t think she’s a good person. but she doesn’t try to explain anything even once. it’s just this big misunderstanding that never gets resolved and it’s genuinely maddening to read. and what is key even doing??? was he on his father’s side the whole time because there are moments where it doesn’t seem like he is. we randomly got one key pov but it didn’t do much. i really missed the depth of first book key.

i know this is a book series about villains and evil, but i also thought it was about survival and joy. the biggest flaw to me, besides parts of the plot being meandering and confusing (the tagar stuff esp is uninteresting), is that there’s barely any of the friendship of the first book. i remember being delighted about eric and rae’s friendship, but that gets like two paragraphs here. rae, lia, and emer should be interacting, but instead rae only meets them once and just thinks about sneaking down to them later and doesn’t actually get to. similarly emer thinking they should go to key because he was their friend was brief. i mean what if they had gone to key? what if rae didn’t act afraid of him and no longer fond of him right from the get-go? what if emer and the cobra expressed the friendship that key liked them for? for some reason no one even tries! it’d be one thing if it failed but it’s not even attempted. i get the whole joke with key and the “i can fix him” thing, that we’re supposed to be confronted with how far his actions can go, that the book is questioning the ideal of being on the villain’s side the same way it’s questioning the ideal of being on the hero’s side with marius. but it feels like things could in fact have been fixed and everyone instead keeps making these choices that are making things worse for no apparent reason.

i did read the last 30% in kind of a rush (and read the whole thing in basically a day) so maybe if i went back i might feel differently but i have no desire to. which is sad because for the first 70% i thought this would be a solid 4 stars. i didn’t want to give it 3 stars because this series means so much to me and i think it has so much potential. i was looking forward to rereading but if i did that now i’d probably just stop after ch 36. even at the (rushed) end eric isn’t there so the mains don’t get to interact all together even once. meanwhile random new potential love interests are set up in this book to question the relationships set up in the first book. unfortunately i dont care about emer’s out-of-the-blue kiss with forge strike, or the potential of rae and ivor the heartless’s fake engagement or, least of all, eric and that fucking minstrel guy (i realize merel is probably very plot-relevant/potentially count starost, but sorryyy im bitter cause while eric is still my favourite character i became a hardcore marius girl this book). like i loved my core six, i was engaged in their relationships (to the point where i don’t even want an emer/lia/forge strike ot3), i didn’t want to see new characters be the obstacles to that. i don’t think any of those are endgame (rae and ivor definitely aren’t, it’s pretty clear including the trope there was a bit), but it’s frustrating to include that rather than to actually spend more pagetime on these very interesting relationships.

TLDR: despite the insanely long essay, i did love a lot of this and i am still really looking forward to the third book. i wouldn’t have written this much if i didn’t care about this series that much, and some of my quibbles are just based on my own preference. but i’m not as excited as i was after the first one. i originally believed that srb believed what she had the cobra say in the first book: that the best story has an exciting set-up, an angsty middle, and a happy ending. this delivered on the angsty middle, but im not convinced there will be a happy ending. and the reason i want there to be one is because i thought it was important to the series as a whole. i know i could be wrong and the third book could tie everything together perfectly. but i feel like these characters that i loved are completely lost. and i get that it seems like that’s the point. the story’s gone wrong. it might have gone too wrong for me, though.

[Amy Peters · Rating 2 out of 5]

I loved Long Live Evil for one reason above all others: it understood emotional gravity.

By the end of the first book, the story had collapsed inward into something genuinely electric—Rae and Key at the center of a broken world, apocalypse transformed into intimacy, romance turned horrific and mythic and weirdly tender all at once. “Evil wins at last, my lady” is the kind of line that completely reorganizes a reader’s expectations for what the series is now about.

And that is exactly why All Hail Chaos is so frustrating.

Because this sequel keeps wandering away from the very thing that made the first book unforgettable.

The biggest problem is structural. Not prose, not imagination, not even characterization in isolation. Sarah Rees Brennan is still extremely funny, clever, atmospheric, and capable of writing moments of astonishing emotional intensity. The problem is that the novel repeatedly disperses its own momentum.

The ending of Book 1 created what felt like a sealed emotional system:
Rae + Key + catastrophic consequences.

Naturally, readers expected Book 2 to deepen that pressure. Instead, the story expands outward almost immediately into scattered POVs, disconnected side plots, logistical fantasy movement, new characters, political maneuvering, misunderstandings, separations, and long stretches where the core relationships barely interact at all.

And that separation is fatal to the book’s emotional engine.

The first novel worked because even when the plotting was messy, the chemistry carried it. Readers will forgive almost anything if the central relational gravity is strong enough. Long Live Evil had that gravity in abundance. Rae and Key felt dangerous, obsessive, funny, psychologically charged. The friendships and group dynamics also mattered. Characters actually affected one another onscreen. The emotional ecosystem felt alive.

Here, everyone feels atomized.

Again and again, the book sets up emotionally explosive possibilities—Rae confronting Key honestly, old friendships attempting reconnection, the “core six” interacting under catastrophic new circumstances—and then swerves sideways into another subplot or POV before the pressure can fully metabolize into payoff.

That’s why so many sections feel oddly repetitive or “filler-ish” despite objectively containing a lot of events. The issue isn’t that nothing happens. It’s that the emotional core does not progress proportionally to the amount of page time spent.

The most frustrating example is Key himself.

Book 1 framed him as the emotional and mythic axis of the entire story. The prose practically bent around his significance. But in this sequel, he often feels strangely distant—not in a compelling gothic way, but in an underwritten, structurally withheld way. A mysterious character should still exert pressure. Instead, Key often feels like he’s intermittently visiting a book that no longer consistently organizes itself around him.

When the book opened on another point of view, I thought . . . Oh, no. But for a while, the book was still engaging. I thought—dearly hoped—that Sarah Rees Brennan would still pull it off.

But looking back, things were off from . . . Well, the very start.

Look at the Key established in the Book 1 climax:

*centuries of torment
*obsessive fixation
*catastrophic resurrection
*emotionally apocalyptic devotion
*possessive fury
*“I crawled out of hell to fall at your feet”
*“Be my evil queen”

That is not the setup for:

“Rae can probably excuse herself politely if she’s efficient about it.”

That is the setup for:

*dangerous fixation
*emotional imprisonment
*unstable attachment
*heightened scrutiny
*overwhelming intensity

Even if Key is not physically imprisoning her (and judging by the closing scene of the last book, he is!), the emotional atmosphere should still feel:

*suffocating
*unstable
*charged
*precarious

Especially that same night.

It's about continuity of emotional pressure.

At the end of Book 1, the narrative pressure is at maximum compression:

*apocalypse
*resurrection
*obsession
*betrayal
*triumph
*catastrophic intimacy

But this passage suddenly introduces surprisingly low-friction mobility:

“All Rae needed to do was slip away as swiftly and efficiently as possible.”

That sentence alone dramatically lowers the perceived intensity of the situation.

It reframes the dynamic from:

“Rae is trapped in the center of a mythic emotional catastrophe”

to:

“Rae is managing a risky but navigable social situation.”

That’s a huge tonal recalibration.

And it’s especially noticeable because the prior ending trained the reader to expect the opposite.

The issue is not literal realism:
obviously even obsessed emperors have moments where people can physically move around.

The issue is felt reality.

Readers expect:

*vigilance
*emotional hyperfocus
*dangerous unpredictability
*the sense that Key’s entire consciousness is locked onto Rae

Instead the atmosphere suddenly has enough slack for:

*logistical planning
*casual exit strategy thinking
*social maneuvering

That weakens the apocalyptic emotional enclosure created by the previous ending. Breathing and eye contact should feel perilous to Rae.

At this point, even mundane actions in Key’s presence should feel like they carry risk: speaking wrong, hesitating too long, stepping away at the wrong moment.

And honestly, this line:

“Enough death for tonight.”

. . . already signals a softer, more performative register than the Book 1 climax.

Compare:

“I love you as a knife loves a throat.”

to:

“Enough death for tonight.”

The former is feverish gothic obsession.
The latter is almost darkly glamorous court banter.

Again, those modes can coexist—but transitions matter enormously.

Without careful emotional bridging, readers experience:

“Wait, are we still in the same emotional reality?”

The strongest version of this setup probably would have leaned harder into:

*claustrophobia
*psychological captivity
*mutual fixation
*unstable emotional dependency
*dread
*intimacy warped into imprisonment

The material is practically begging for it.

Does anything in last chapter of Book 1 give the impression that Key would receive a bunch of ministers right in the middle of his heated confrontation with Rahela?

The ending of Book 1 presents Key as:

*mythic
*terrifying
*obsessive
*emotionally volcanic
*apocalyptic
*freshly risen from torment
*singularly focused on Rae

The emotional atmosphere is:

*“The world has ended.”
*“A godlike revenant has reclaimed the woman who doomed him.”
*“Reality itself has narrowed to these two people and their catastrophic bond.”

That is gothic intensity.

Then Book 2 suddenly starts operating on a different dramatic frequency:

*casual banter
*administrative interruptions

And readers feel the gears grinding.

It did not feel like a continuation of the same scene. The expectation was climactic. Not married-for-seven-years vibes!

And honestly, the “sneaking out casually” point is structurally huge.

Because the ending of Book 1 does not establish:

“Rae is in a situation with negotiable boundaries.”

It establishes:

“Rae is trapped in the center of a cosmic emotional nightmare.”

That changes the reader’s expectations for the next movement of the story.

After that ending, readers expect:

*claustrophobia
*intensity
*danger
*fixation
*emotional imprisonment
*catastrophic dependency
*unstable power dynamics

Not:

“Maybe I’ll casually slip away for a bit.”

Even if escape eventually becomes possible, the story usually needs a transitional phase where:

*the new reality settles
*power is demonstrated
*emotional dynamics stabilize
*the danger becomes legible

Otherwise the apocalyptic ending starts feeling retroactively inflated.

And the minister scene especially illustrates the tonal split.

The book keeps undercutting its own strongest emotional material with tonal drift.

The reason the minister scene feels wrong to is that it disperses tension away from the emotional confrontation we were promised.

At the end of Book 1:

*Rae and Key are psychologically locked together
*the world has just ended
*evil has triumphed
*the abyss has opened

That creates a pressure chamber.

Readers expect the next chapters to deepen that pressure.

Instead the scene suddenly widens outward

*exposition
*political spectators
*reactions from outsiders
*theatrical presentation of the Emperor

That changes the emotional geometry from:

“Two people trapped in catastrophe”

to:

“Ensemble fantasy with dark emperor in the background like Henry VIII in a random Tudor person’s life.”

And that’s a very different novel.

My objection isn’t “this can never happen,” it’s that the emotional timing feels wrong.

Because yes, eventually ministers would regroup, power structures would reassert themselves, governance would matter, terrified elites would attempt contact, and someone would try to negotiate with the apocalypse.

That’s all plausible.

But that same night—immediately after mass slaughter, supernatural upheaval, the rise of an undead emperor, the collapse of the old order, and an intensely personal confrontation with Rae—creates a tonal problem.

Human beings don’t instantly snap into:

“Ah yes, now for courtly introductions.”

Not after witnessing eschatological horror.

I might have wanted to keep a low profile for the next 24 hours, just sayin’. Psychological realism.

The scene I expected emotionally is something more like panic, paralysis, barricaded rooms, whispers, people trying to flee, survivors not understanding what happened, terrified delay, rumors spreading through a burning city.

Because the ending of Book 1 frames the Emperor’s return as civilization-breaking.

But then the next book partially treats it as dramatic regime change with witty theatrics.

And again, those modes can coexist. Some stories deliberately combine horror, black comedy, flamboyant villainy and political theatre. But to pull that off, the author has to carefully control transitions in emotional intensity.

Otherwise the reader starts feeling:

“Wait, is everyone underreacting?”

That underreaction problem is often fatal in fantasy because fantasy relies heavily on emotional calibration.

Readers learn what events mean from how characters react, narration frames them, pacing slows or accelerates and consequences unfold. Readers can unconsciously downgrade the apocalypse.

And that weakens the prior climax retroactively.

That’s why I keep circling back to the ending of Book 1:
The ending promised one kind of novel momentum,
while the continuation keeps dissipating it.

At that point, readers usually want:

*compression,
*intensity,
*consequence,
*psychological continuation,
*fallout.

Not expansion.

Expanding immediately after convergence can feel like narrative decompression at exactly the wrong moment.

Imagine:

*Sauron returns,
*Dracula claims Mina,
*Heathcliff opens Catherine’s grave—

and then the book goes:

“Now let’s spend three chapters with tertiary nobles discussing regional logistics.”

Readers revolt because emotional momentum has been interrupted before payoff.

And in some ways the book was still rather good.

That’s often the hallmark of books with uneven structural control but strong imaginative power.

Readers stay because:

*the imagery works,
*the atmosphere works,
*the emotional intensity sometimes works,
*certain relationships are compelling,
*the author clearly has vision.

But the frustration accumulates because the story repeatedly fails to capitalize on its own strongest material.

The author is extraordinarily good at creating arrivals.

*the Emperor’s return,
*the throne room scene,
*the catastrophic confrontations.

She understands:

*spectacle,
*atmosphere,
*emotional extremity,
*gothic imagery,
*theatrical declarations.

What seems shakier is:

*aftermath
*sustained focus
*emotional follow-through
*pacing discipline
*deciding which threads deserve narrative priority

So the books generate enormous emotional energy . . .
. . . and then diffuse it sideways instead of driving it forward.

That creates exactly the feeling I described earlier:

“This could have been incredible if it trusted its own core story.”

The series is excellent at generating arrival-level intensity, but inconsistent at sustaining aftershock logic.

That’s a real craft distinction:

Arrival writing: entrances, confrontations, revelations, mythic declarations
Aftershock writing: consequences, containment, psychological persistence, power stabilization

Book 2 keeps jumping back to “arrival mode” in new threads instead of staying inside the aftermath of the biggest arrival (Book 1’s ending).

And yet, ironically, every time the novel narrows back into concentrated relational focus, it comes alive again.

Tiny interactions suddenly crackle.
Brief moments of humor or chemistry feel disproportionately wonderful.
Some scenes after Lucius is introduced genuinely breathe.
Lucius immediately becomes memorable because he exists inside a tighter emotional circuit.

But here is the problem: The only new character (though he is technically mentioned in the first book) that interested me, whose presence made the pages light up with Sarah Rees Brennan's trademark magic . . . Perhaps even the only character in the whole second book to do that, I am sad to say, including Rae and Key . . . is killed off for ‘bothering’ the stupid Cobra.

If there’s anything I hate like burning poison, it is a sequel that jumps out of the characters’ heads and instead tell the climactic scene you have waited years for from the point of view of some rando. Also, when the author is clearly in love with a character I hate. This moron character just ruined everything (he destroyed the ancestral home of and got the mother of the man he supposedly loves killed) by being an utter moron and he is just flirting and laughing and . . . Gah. If he had just shut up, everything would have been fine, and I wouldn't have to read about this boring sub-plot. And the Cobra is clearly supposed to be JUST SO AWESOME. And he is a . . . Gary Stu who is a walking disaster.

Caracalla has just lost her MOTHER and her HOME (her awesome if creepy ancestral home on top of that) as a direct consequence of the actions of this guy and the Cobra finds that HAVING A ONE NIGHT STAND, giggling all the while, is appropriate for THAT VERY SAME EVENING?!!

And what the Hell was up with that Merel guy? Who cared about him?!!

That group were all so BORING. Finally we switch from the stupid group (left on a cliff-hanger because she thinks anyone will care) and instead of being switched to the main action it is yet different points of view . . . WHAT IS THIS?

Sadly that entire group was not killed as I had hoped, leading to a predictable plot reveal that I was okay with, if only to stop Rae's internal monologue about 'going back to the real world', which is always boring in stories like this.

And Rae’s ‘friendship’ with Vasilisa . . . First thing after Rae slips away (!!!), she discovers that the Horrors have betrayed her. Understandably so, but. So Rae keeping to seek female friendships just comes off as daft. Her old friends also horribly betrayed her, and yet she keeps touching that same ol’ stove. This would have been believable if it were spread over years, but these are days, at best. Rae did something nice, she saved Vasilisa’s brother. In return, Vasilisa’s country is invading.

Rae is terrified of Key, but OK with the Rok and Ivor?!

I also liked Caracalla, at least initially. I hoped the Cobra's betrayal of her (honestly, he is young, but he has lived in this world for many years now and should know some of its mores. People refusing to learn to do that because of modern-ess and that coming back to bite them was actually and interesting point I hoped would be explored, but then it just . . . wasn't) would lead her in an interesting direction, and it did, until Lucius’ death.

What frustrates me most about the Cobra storyline is not even the character himself, but the degree to which the novel seems emotionally convinced of his importance while repeatedly asking readers to tolerate catastrophic consequences generated by his impulsiveness without fully metabolizing them emotionally. Entire relationships, settings, and emotional trajectories collapse around him, yet the narrative often treats him with an oddly protective levity that made it difficult for me to stay invested in his subplot.

The Cobra increasingly feels less like a destabilizing force the novel is interrogating and more like a chaos engine the narrative is indulgently enamored with. Entire emotional arcs and relationships are sacrificed to his impulsiveness, yet the book rarely lingers on the consequences with the same intensity it grants his charm.

This story has material, but a story needs to know how to protect and prioritize that material structurally.

The novel repeatedly disperses the emotional gravity it itself created.

The novel destabilized the emotional hierarchy it itself established.

Even Key, in fragments, still steals the book.

Which almost makes the whole thing more painful.

Because the talent is obvious. The emotional magnets still work. The prose is often better than Book 1. The author clearly knows how to write intensity, yearning, atmosphere, wit, and interpersonal electricity.

But the structure keeps interrupting those strengths instead of protecting them.

This book feels less like a coherent escalation and more like a story nervously circling its own center without fully committing to it. It repeatedly creates pressure and then releases it too early through POV diffusion, emotional withholding, cast expansion, and prolonged separation.

I don’t think readers are frustrated because the book became darker, messier, or more tragic.

I think readers are frustrated because the story no longer seems fully convinced about what its own emotional center actually is.

And that is devastating when Book 1 came so close to greatness.

Because this series absolutely has the ingredients of an obsessive gothic fantasy classic. You can see it constantly. You can feel it trying to emerge in certain scenes.

But this installment too often steps away from the emotional sun it created itself.

The book keeps wandering away from its own best material.

There was diffuse distance:

Key felt inconsistently present, structurally withheld, emotionally intermittent and oddly inaccessible despite page time.

This decreases tension.

These books had all the ingredients of an immortal classic, a Dracula, a Wuthering Heights. This series keeps stepping away from its own greatness.

Still reading Book 3, though.

. . . because Key.