I'm happy to say that I enjoyed Cursor's Fury a bit more than the last. I can't quite put my finger on exactly why that last book seemed slower or easier to put down, but this one certainly picked back up for me. Alera finds itself threatened by not just the threats to usurp the First Lord, but also a foreign threat. There's plenty of conflict, intrigue, political backstabbing and other nefarious on goings to keep this story going. We also get to learn more about the Marat and Canim, two other races that live in areas outside of Alera, to better understand the world they live in.