The second and final in the Monsters of Verity series, Our Dark Duet picks up almost half a year after Kate Harker's departure from Verity. She is now living in Prosperity, hunting monsters there, where the monster epidemic is still very much underground and mostly unknown by the population. Kate witnesses the aftermath of a an attack by a new kind of monster, and after an encounter with this strange creature, she finds herself leaving her new friends and heading back to Verity to warn them of this new danger.
August Flynn is still in Verity playing his role as a leader in the army of the divided city, after half has been completely overtaken by monsters. He is tasked with 'reaping' humans who have committed sins, sending them to their deaths and spends the book grappling with the human and monster parts of himself. He is reluctant leader, but commits to the role, forming strong bonds with his team, who respect him deeply.
I enjoyed being back in this dark, gritty, urban world. It was good to see a little of the world outside of Verity and see how the physical-monsters-born-of-bad-deeds concept could spread in different cities (I smell a spin of series?) Monsters Sloan and Alice make great baddies and there were numerous really well choreographed fights scenes. The ideas of what really makes a person fundamentally 'bad' and monstrous and what actions deserve death were really well explored and mirrored in August's conflict over whether to more human or more monster.
As ever, V.E. Schwab has created a compelling, clever, and very well paced book. Um, read it!
I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review, which this was :)
