The second part of the book looks to facing these emotions, and all the ripples that had moved out from the original focal point of saying truth against the lie discovered.
I noticed that too and quite enjoyed the book which is actually a first book of a new series: The Ravenwood Series.
The second half of the book easily flowed from the first, and really the whole story is not some grand adventure (although war factors), full of intrigue and villain's, no, it is simple - the search for and the understanding of simple truths. And yet it is powerful. This last part of the book is the reconciliation from one event (the calamity) that looks to the deeper understanding of truth and lies (and such pain that ripples from the latter in so many directions), even the middle ground is explored, along with the locking up of emotions and searching for the keys to same. Primarily, it is looking at what love means; an often surface word used with such ephemeral meanings that can't well, if at all, be captured in words themselves.
Without the need to put a spoiler here that digs into the story and its many characters, will just add a few quotes that may provide a feeling for Mary's latest book:
Perhaps,” he said, “some people find it more comfortable to see their world the way they want it to be. Do you think?” “Instead of the way it is...”
One could never predict the future, and the past could never be changed. The only influence one could ever have upon one’s own life or the lives of other people was in the present, yet the present was such a fleeting thing, gone even as one thought of it. Then one was confronted with yet another present moment, and so on throughout a lifetime. Each moment unveiling choices and decisions, any of which might have long-lasting consequences. It was a dizzying, even frightening thought, for any hope one might have of permanence or stability was just an illusion.
Had the choice been between love and truth? But were they not the same thing? Or, when he thought he had acted out of an adherence to the truth, did he really mean righteousness? Righteousness—the need to judge and condemn in the name of a perceived truth. ...
No one teaches you that the future is not assured, do they? They teach you useless things like the plays of Shakespeare and the difference between who and whom. They teach you to add and multiply and divide. They teach you to find Italy and India and China on a map, and how to paint in watercolors and embroider your initials across the corner of a handkerchief without pulling the linen out of shape. You have to learn all the important things from life itself.”
“When people live in denial of the truth—sometimes large groups of them all together—they lose their . . . I am not sure of the right word. They lose something precious, something good and right and true. Their integrity, perhaps? ...
Truth mattered.
It was love.
For readers here, there is something about this story of Mary's that fits rather well with what the C's so often say, all there is are lessons. IMO, she gets the right of "simple truths and understandings."