I read She's the One Who Thinks Too Much for a blog tour with Goddess Fish Promotions and eagerly signed up for the second book's review tour as soon as it was announced, but just to make sure I got the opportunity I also requested it on NetGalley and was approved. Thank you to all involved in affording me this opportunity from both sources! My thoughts are my own and my review is honest.

She's the One Who Cares Too Much is the second book in the War Stories of the Seven Troublesome Sisters series by S. R. Cronin, and it follows the story of the second-born sister Coral. This book is fairly well self-contained and if any readers interested in the series gain access to this one first I do think it's readable on its own. There's a lot of world-building done in book one that isn't repeated that might leave gaps in establishing who the velka are, why this particular family has a rocky history with the velka, and the nuances of the relationship between Ryalgar and Prince Nevik. Beyond that, however, there's enough done to make the world here make sense, and there's a whole lot of world-building around the luskies introduced. We also have all of the tidbits about farther reaches of the realm thanks to Coral's connection with a high ranking military officer.

I'm going to admit here that I didn't read the synopsis too closely before diving into this book, and also the title convention for the series made it obvious this book would be following a different sister, I hadn't realized this would be a true companion novel. I'm not opposed to companion novels, and the world Cronin has built with the looming war threatening it demands the deep dive companion novels can offer. With that said, book one ends abruptly at the beginning of said war ...and so does this one. We've built deeper connections with familiar characters and met new ones, we have a deeper understanding of how the luskies fit into the velka's plans, and I dare say I enjoyed Coral more as a POV character than Ryalgar, but at the end of the day we haven't got anywhere in terms of progress past the first book. Now that I know what to expect from these books I won't be disappointed with the abrupt ending at the same point in books 3-7 (I expect we're getting one per sister?) but that doesn't change my experience reading this one, and I do hope that once we've had a set-up for each sister we'll finally fight the war.

I highly recommend both books and future books in this series to all lovers of historical fiction with a flair of fantasy/magic and strong, complicated women, with the caveat that you go into it understanding that these are companion novels cover the same timeline that can be read in any order. It'll be some time and several books yet before we find out what happens "next," but for now we can enjoy what was happening "meanwhile." I will definitely jump on She's the One Who Gets in Fights when the opportunity comes knocking.