After the previous book, this was so lovely. I really enjoyed the build up we had in all the prior books to now see Lial and Lynea get their own story. I thought it was well done from the romance perspective, and really appreciate how the author handled the reverence these two characters had for previous relationships they experienced. Each of them held space for the prior partners, and realized that even if they were not each other’s “soulbonded” they loved each other on a similar level.
Now, with that said, I still maintain my enjoyment of the series would be greater if more effort was spent explaining a soulbond in this world. I’m really struggling with what that means, and if the author would just tell us and quit throwing in all these exceptions to the soul bonded when it doesn’t seem like it’s the norm. Our characters all seem to have a similar understanding of what a potential soulbond is, and we’re lead to believe that once you find them that is pretty much it, you’re destined to be with them. Very rarely is there a triad like Fen/Maddy/Anna, but then just as rare is the moving on from a soulbond. I mean, Lial was alone for 1400 years! Yet Lynea moved on after 22 years. 😳 Then again, we have Aris and Selia who are married and together for 500-years and we learned from their book they each met their potential soulbonded and chose not to bond with them like it was an actual option, even resisted it while being held prisoner in the case of Aris. So how are we to believe a soul bond is so rare and precious if we keep seeing the unusual?
Another frustration of this book was other characters like Dria and Vek who were completely missing, and Selia wasn’t in this much considering what Aris went through, not to mention Iren was also missing. Ralan was pretty sparse as well as Eri and Cora, Kai and Arlyn, and even Lyr wasn’t around much considering he’s the head dude in charge. Btw, why are Delbin and Inona still not bonded or married yet? I guess they’re another reason I wish the author would explain the whole soulbonded premise better.
I’m surprised I am still keeping this as 4-stars, but I enjoyed Lial and Lynia so very much, and am just going to have to deal with the parts that I felt were missing or the cliffhangers (old and new) regarding the overall series storyline.