A review by eswee
Hollow Empire by Sam Hawke

adventurous challenging emotional mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

This sequel to City of Lies was even more enjoyable as it leaned a bit more to Adult, as the three main characters have grown older a couple of years. The pace of the story was the same (but reading it went faster), alternating between Jovan and Kalina. I again enjoyed this way of storytelling a lot. 

Both are unraveling another threatening mystery within their country and city. There is a lot of politics (including bureaucracy) and conspiracy, a fair bit of action, poisoning and folklore magic and (what I always like best) is of course the "detectiving". While the end first makes you feel hollow and grieving, there is an open lightheartedness. I wasn't sure about this series before, but will probably end up reading every book that will be written after Hollow Empire.