Nothing can defeat the pain of losing someone you love. Losing someone to death, knowing that you did nothing wrong, but fate decided to take the one you love away from you forever, nothing can take the pain of that. But to lose the one you love to another? To see them, smiling at a joke that you did not tell, making plans with someone other than you. Seeing them happy in their arms, knowing a few short weeks ago they were right beside you, that is pain on a different level. When Ethan first lost his mother to her car accident, he never knew a greater pain. Years after he began to move on, truly feeling happy again when he met the love of his life, Lena, and began to feel more human again. When Lena thought she was going dark (and in a way she was) she pushed Ethan aside, forming a friendship with John Breed, that was a little more than friendly. It crushed Ethan, seeing Lena with John, so much that he risked his own life, as well as Link’s life, and his new friend Liv’s life, trying to find out why Lena left him. Fighting off Abraham and Sarafine, Ethan got Lena back, but with a price: Lena claimed herself as half-light, and halt dark, breaking the order. With no order there is going to be hell on earth, something Ethan is willing to face, but only with Lena at his side.

Nothing ever bad happens in a small town like Gatlin. The worst would have been the death of little Ethan’s mamma, but besides that nothing major happens here. Which is why when swarms of locust’s start coming to the land, tornados and earthquakes, and record breaking heat, Ethan might believe Link’s mother when she starts preaching about the end of days. To make matters worse the Caster’s are losing control of their powers, making them edgy. With mortal Ridley still plays games with part Incubus Link, Ethan and Lena are still stuck in their high school drama of a romantic feature fights, dances, and Savannah Snow’s party.  Ethan still wants to be friends with Liv, but cannot stand to make Lena jealous, where Lena acts totally fine around John, even though Ethan cannot stand him.  Ethan’s mother is still sending shadow songs, warning him about the eighteenth moon, and with Abraham and Sarafine breathing down their necks, they must pay the ultimate price to restore the order, the ultimate price of a sacrifice.

Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl are whining up this series for the big finally. Ethan and Lena are growing closer, Ethan believing Lena is the one. But with every kiss sends his heart racing, not in a good way, could being with her cause his death? The best part, which practically saved the book, was the diary-like entries Lena found about her mother. Sarafine past, allowed us into the glimpse of what this woman, mother of Lena, was like before she gave into the darkness. giving the true reason behind the fire that Sarafine started, killing her husband and fleeing the house with baby Lena inside. With the sixteenth moon where Lena pushed her, claiming, to the seventeenth moon where she claimed to be both light and dark, to now, to the eighteenth moon, where a sacrifice must be made by the One who is a Two, in order to restore the order and save the world.