skygiants

LOL at your fairywarriorangel description of Tristan (though, it's also 100% true!) Although I tend to be mostly wary about insta-love situations, Miles/Tristan didn't bother me as much in this book because so much of Miles' life (and backstory) was depressing as hell. So I clung to the syrupy happiness of his slow burn romance with the ~mysterious fairywarriorangel. YMMV,obvs.

Re Grace in the second book...I dunno. After my comment here, I pinged a book friend who read the sequel (they found it to be "Okay"). And, after a bit more chatting, they spoiled me about the entire novel--which made me glad that I stayed away. It seemed to me like there were too many plotlines (between my friend and I, we counted 7?) that the author did a poor job in juggling.

Also, the touted F/F romance Grace has is more like a tertiary addition and/or nowhere near as central to the overall story the way Miles/Tristan was in the first book.

Your definition of Grace as a milquetoast liberal is painfully accurate. Unfortch, it seems like the sequel fails at exploring Grace's sudden 'wokeness' in lieu of handwave-y political story (and, as I understood it, the politics are treated with the same wobbliness as PTSD was treated in book 1. *hands*)

FWIW, I'm curious if you'd like the second book (and would most deffo be rarin' to hear your thoughts about it if you do.)