Finished: For the Throne (Whitten) The sequel to For the Wolf, I was greatly looking forward to this book, but was not nearly as crazy about it as I was the first book. For the Wolf was the story of royal twin sisters born in the kingdom of Valleyda who both had destinies to fulfill being the first and second born daughters. Neverah (Neve) is the first born twin, so is marked to be the next queen. Redarys (Red) is the second born daughter and is marked to be sacrificed to the wolf who is one with the magical Wilderwood forest. By the end of For the Wolf, Red and Eammon (the wolf whose really a man infused with the Wilderwood) have fallen in love and are battling together with their powers from the Wilderwood to save the trees that are mysteriously disappearing. Neve, who has unfortunately put her trust in an evil priestess to try and get Red back, is helping those who want the five kings to return, i.e., the kings who went down under to the Shadowlands and gave their souls for power, only to become Shadow Monsters. So, Neve and Red are at cross purposes, working against each other without knowing it. At the end of that book, Eammon and Red manage to save the Wilderwood, but as they are doing so, Neve finally sees Red and believes that Red is going to die if Neve doesn't become one with the Shadowlands that are trying to destroy the Wilderwood. Throughout both books, each of the sisters cares desperately about the other one being safe and back home, and will sacrifice nearly anything to make that happen. The second book, For the Throne is Neve's story. It's the story of how she ends up in the Shadowlands with only a single being that she knew from up above, Solmir. Solmir is one of the kings who'd gone down to the Shadowlands to garnish more power, but then wanted to find a way for all the kings to come back to Valleyda. He worked with the evil priestess and took over the body of Arrick, good friend to Neve and Red, to trick Neve into helping. At the end of the first book, Neve realizes that Solmir has killed Arrick to take over his body, and now in the second book, this is the person she's trapped with in the Shadowlands. It is apparently her destiny to become the Shadow Queen. She just wants to get back home. Solmir swears to her that he can get her home, and that he's just trying to get the evil kings, now shadow monsters, to come back through to the real world so that he can kill them and do away with their evil once and for all. What he doesn't tell her is that she is going to be the vessel that all their powers will flow into as they are physically killed, and that to completely wipe them out, he'll have to turn around and kill Neve. The problem is, Solmir has fallen in love with Neve, and in the process of their adventure to make all this happen, Neve falls in love with him as well. Meanwhile, in the Wilderwood, we see bits of Red and Eammon's story as Red fights to get to a Heart Tree which she believes will bring Neve back to her from the Shadowlands. When it works, and the sisters come face to face and embrace, it doesn't go as Red planned. Neve chooses to go back to the Shadowlands to finish her battle against the kings/monsters with Solmir. We end up with another huge climax in this book, but it wasn't as compelling for me because I honestly didn't care as much about Neve or Solmir as I did Red and Eammon in the first book. I'm still glad I read it though, and happy with the outcome of the story! :-)