Muse of Nightmares by Laini Taylor (audiobook)

To appreciate this in any way, you need to read Strange the Dreamer first.  She does a great job of reminding you of important bits but Strange is SO DANG GOOD you should just read it first anyway.

Lazlo and Sarai.  God and ghost.  Both are on the brink of a calamity inside the citadel, at odds with the ferocious Minya and with Weep in chaos below.  How in the world can Lazlo save everyone, as his heart can't help but want to do?   With his new-found power over mesarthium, Lazlo should be able to help all the godspawn get the answers they crave but how can he when Minya is frantic with the need for vengeance?   Sarai, who has died but is not gone, will have to use both the gift she was given and the experiences she's had to navigate this battlefield between the horrors of the past and the unknowns of the present.

What both Lazlo and Sarai need to know is a path through hate to forgiveness and compassion, but such a path is fraught with so much pain and trauma. One thing that I really loved about this book is that we find sympathy for both victim and perpetrator, which is an astonishing thing.  We see how both what happens to us AND the decisions we make can break us in such a way that our souls are in pieces that will sometimes take a miracle to put back together.   I loved watching tiny bits and threads from early in the book start to tie their way into the narrative, Laini Taylor is SUCH A MASTER of this and it's something that gives me IMMENSE joy as a reader - to see a situation and think OH OH OH!! ! I KNOW!!!  THAT THING!   FROM LONG AGO!  IT MATTERS FOR REAL!  Even though it was a thing that you can't have imagined would matter at all.  I LOVE THAT in my books.  I also LOVE how she can write her characters into redemption - what an incredible journey to take, to watch someone go from either broken or detestable to repaired, restored and whole, at least more so?  All while all kinds of other action is happening and a plot is moving forward in such a way that you can't help but listen to the story every moment you can? 

**(maybe a spoiler below, just use caution if you super HATE any spoilers of any kind ;) **

AND, for the LOVE!  If you can just toss in another whole completely huge and mind-bending-but phenomenal twist that rings so familiar and beautiful that, as an avid Laini Taylor fan, you smile so big you sit in your car and know you look like an idiot but can't help it?  Yeah.  That. 

**end possible spoiler**

This book.  It's to the point where I am an obnoxiously obsessed fan of Laini Taylor.  Take it for whatever it's worth. What she does, is what I adore.  The end.

note to sensitive readers: there is some sexual situations here with anatomical words used :)