VERY quick and easy read. It was fun, but perhaps a little hollow.
Blade of Secrets had a very different vibe from The Shadows Between Us, which was a little disappointing to me. I wasn't expecting another morally grey MC story, but I thought Blade of Secrets would feel a bit more like upper YA, given that the main character is 18. That's how I felt about The Shadows Between Us. But this didn't feel like upper YA at all. In fact, I thought the main character acted a bit more like 16 rather than 18. So that was an expectation mismatch for me.
But otherwise it was a fun book. It won't be sticking with me for any length of time, but it was enjoyable.
I thought the end was rough though. This is meant to be a duology, but Blade of Secrets didn't feel like it had much closure on its own. It didn't even really have a cliffhanger. Rather than ending mid-series, it felt like it just ended after a perfectly normal chapter. In other words: instead of a duology this just felt like one book chopped in half. Even with a series I expect a certain plot line to be wrapped up, even if more questions are posed for the next book. But this just felt like halfway through one single book.