I am struggling with how to rate this story. Despite the rocky start in the first book, I had somewhat higher hopes for this book. I thought that once we covered everything that had already happened in the first trilogy we would get a faster paced story, but having just finished it my thoughts can pretty much be summed up in a shrug.
There was some development of characters and relationships here, but overall it felt like an interim. I think all of this and the first book could have been condensed together and it wouldn't have changed much. I enjoy character driven stories, but I don't feel like there was enough growth here to justify the amount of time spent in Maddie's head. Nothing plot heavy really happened until that last 5% to set up the cliffhanger, and even that is a bit lackluster to me because I still just don't like/care about Leo. And I'm 98% sure that plot armor means he'll be fine, so it's hard to say that the cliff-hanger was effective. I'm almost glad for that though, since the next book isn't out yet.
The spice ramped up a bit from the first book, but it's still all going exceedingly slow as they figure out their dynamic. The tension and slow burn are decent, but not anything phenomenal. I feel like the author recycled the parts of her previous trilogy that worked for her and has just changed some details. It's a shame, because I loved the previous trilogy, but this is not holding up so far. I'm still invested enough to finish the series though, so that says something at least.