As we left off in the first one, Cara is on her way to participate in the exchange on the planet L'eihr. Unfortunately she won't get to have Aelyx with her, as it should have been, because of how they still have to try to convince the people of earth to accept an alliance with the L'eihr. If they don't, in about 10 years, everyone on Earth will die. Horrible deaths of dehydration, as the water is now ruined from a government experiment that went wrong. An Earth government, not the aliens. But the L'eihr have the way to fix it. And the only way they will share the fix is if the alliance works out. And part of that means they have to stop trying to kill the L'eihr. And in this book, it seems as if Aelyx is the lucky recipient of all the assassination attempts. He and Syrine are traveling the world to try to gather the support needed. They are set up with a personal bodyguard, David, who soon becomes like a best friend to Aelyx, and after averting a bomb explosion from killing Syrine, she develops feelings for him.
Things aren't going so great on L'eihr for Cara either. It seems this advanced race that doesn't have the emotions that humans do, is just as petty and mean as the people on Earth were to the L'eihr students when they were there. Not only are the other students mean, the classes are extremely advanced for Cara for the most part. Especially the physical education ones. For awhile Cara's brother Troy is there, which gives her at least one friend, along with Aelyx's sister, Elle, Cara's roommate. Of course there is Jackson, one of the members of The Way. But there is something about Jackson that creeps Cara out. There are other issues, soon Cara starts getting framed for things that would get her punished, in some cases the punishment is as severe as death. When she gets to go see the colony, there is much still to be done. And there are a lot of other things going on, Cara learns of a theory that says humans came before the L'eihr. And then there are all these little probes that keep landing, starting with one that falls in the middle of Cara's Sh'ovah ceremony, which makes her a L'eihr citizen.
But things begin to come to a head, Cara can't imagine staying on L'eihr forever, especially when even after she's given a spot on the community that is planning the colony. The others on the committee won't give an inch towards any suggestions that Cara brings up. When Cara and Aelyx meet up again, these are things that will need to be discussed. There will be some heartache as they try to decide what they will do next. And all of it will be a part of a bigger plan, one that will lead to the death of characters we have grown to love, as well as making other characters out to be something that wasn't even imagined at the beginning of the story.
Such a great read. Again, parts where I cried. Parts that I laughed, and all in all, I just loved the story. I still want my own Aelyx. And this is another book that I think I would love to see as either a movie, or a tv series. But if it was a series, I'd want them to do so much better about staying close to the story than they seem to do. A great sequel, and now, now I can't wait to read the final book!
Also, right now I've got a giveaway going on where you can pick one of the books in this series, just go HERE to enter by February 14th!
