Days of Blood and Starlight by Laini Taylor

I have no idea what the cover on this book is supposed to represent from the book itself... It doesn't at all give you an idea of what is going on in the story. Can you tell from that picture that this book is about an enormous and horribly bloody war going on between angels and chimera, and that Karou, our heroine from the first book in the series, is stuck working as a resurrectionist in the midst of a terrifying army of monsters that she's created? And that there is basically no romance in this book at all, since she and Akiva are separated from each other because of the major oversight he made of destroying the chimera city and basically killing all of her people? I don't know, this cover doesn't work at all for me, but the story was great. I felt like it was a major shift from the first book, which was basically a teen romance novel set in a fantasy world, and much more about huge, big-picture issues like saving your people and forgiving your enemies and all sorts of things like that. It was also a lot less fun and peppy than the first book was, with all of its funny aspects like enormous puppet shows and pubs with tables made of coffins. But I really liked it more for all of those things--it was much deeper and seemed to really get into the rest of the world of Eretz much more. And Taylor's writing is beautiful and does a great job of painting the world and giving you a good sense of the character's emotions and personalities. I loved the new characters we got to know in this book, particularly Ziri. I am definitely listening to the 3rd book once I get the chance.