One thing you can't fault Kagawa for is the amount of ideas she brings to the table.There is always an abundance of creativity and I think this venture into a darker genre was right up her alley. Although riddled with vampires the book also has elements of a dystopian society within the ruins of a rampaged world.I found the first half of the book fresh and exciting, then I think Kagawa made a mistake in her plot. Taking out a key character that you have just spent one half of book introducing to the reader, well it doesn't always work.After that the book lost a major element and what could have been an outstanding story became a mediocre one instead.This is something Kagawa is prone to do and has done in some of the earlier Iron King books also. For me there is still an imbalance and inconsistency in the storyline, creativity and plot, but there is always the next book.