So when I received this book I was not aware that it was book seven in the series, however; that did not affect this story for me. It can be read as a standalone, and after having read it, the excitement to go back and read the first six books is real! I genuinely enjoyed this book. The mystery and excitement of the story was captivating to me. And I’m sure once I’ve gone back and started the series at the beginning of the amount of characters will fall into place as there are many and being unfamiliar with them was a slight disadvantage. It would also explain the minimal character details in this book as well as just falling into this world vs and real building. But again none of this deterred the story for me because it is just a very well written and fun novel that I actually feel would translate really well into a movie. I look forward to starting at the beginning of this series and working my way through the ones that were published prior to this one because I feel this series is one that is absolutely worth putting in effort into reading.