After I finished Verse V02: The Second Gate I said, well, time to put in a request for book three Yet, Sam Beck’s next volume is not due until mid/late August 2024. I am not sure I can handle that as I really want to know what happens to everyone and most of us should probably read this (at least) trilogy back-to-back as there is a lot going on and unless you have a great memory, you might have forgotten a few things like I had. Since it had been awhile between the reading of volumes one and two, I had a few plot points that were confusing as I had forgotten what happened. Also, as a lot of middle editions of a series, this has a lot of build up to the finale and that makes things slow, so trying to keep up with book two and remember book one also was confusing. 
However, I do enjoy this both straightforward, familiar story of magic, political corruption, family, friendship, love and doing the right thing and the many twists and turns that overlap, bounce around and keep you on your toes. Sometimes we are not always given a “hey change of POV coming up” warning for when or where we are, or someone new is speaking, but there are a few places that are very obvious with a, “Hey we need to backtrack a bit here and show you something important” moments. This allows for three main story arcs to happen at once, without you thinking you are still with Character A when you have moved to Character Y. 
The artwork is busy, crowded, and sometimes characters are similar looking allowing for some more confusion. And as this is a fantasy-medieval world, they look similar to other books/graphic novels and I had to stop and remember that I was confusing my books. Also since names are not always mentioned, I needed a scorecard to keep track! Plus, sometimes it was not clear who was speaking. In other words, it might be a straight road we’re traveling but it has a few blocks in the path to slow you down.
Book two adds more to the story and hopefully they can wrap it all up in volume three. A somewhat diverse cast that leans heavy on modern themes (women in powerful positions, women leaders in the military, GLBTQ romance), we follow the familiar fantasy story across the pages.
Includes a short story entitled “Pole star” that gives background to a few characters. 