Sharon Shinn is the master of slow-burn, clean romantic subplots. My favorite thing about them is that they are always mature, and the characters usually act quite reasonably. This book is a high fantasy quest, with a big helping of intrigue where the southern lords are plotting treason against the king. High fantasy quests are hard to make interesting because they can be meandering as the people questing go from town to town and it can be difficult in between episodes of dramatic things to pay attention. This book suffers a bit from that, but I can fully say that I don't have a lot of patience as a reader and quest fantasy is not my favorite sub-genre so I don't count that as a strike against this book. If you like quest fantasy you probably won't mind it. What saved it for me was that all of the characters were interesting, and I wanted to know more about them. I became terribly invested in each of the characters' relationships with each other. This book is also setup for mysteries and conflicts that will hopefully be revealed in the next books, so I will definitely be reading them. ( )

Loved it. This was very easy to read, which is always a good thing. I really liked the characters, especially Senneth (the main character) of course, but I also liked Kirra, Cammon, and later the two riders. In the beginning the riders are behaving annoyingly prejudiced, of course, but they stay relatively respectful. When they are not, it's because they do not like mystics, not because they have a problem with powerful women. The women are strong and realistic: they have skills (and impressive ones too), they have flaws, and they have emotions. When they need help, they accept it without fuss, not getting into a power struggle, or acting stupidly out of pride. The same can be said for the men, although one of them is a bit surly about it on one occasion. Not much though, and he totally expected to be rescued by Senneth, after making the smart decision of not fighting when the odds are not on his side. I like the camaraderie of the group, and how they grow closer together. This is mostly shown through incidents on the road, and although that works, it got a bit repetitive halfway through the book. Fortunately, the pacing changed a bit a little later.

I'm not happy that the next book doesn't follow Senneth, but follows Kirra instead, but I suppose I'll try to get over it. This one was very good, in any case. ( )

So, very, meh. Starting out, I appreciated the cozy, nostalgic tone of the writing, reminiscent of stuff from my childhood: wrede, feist, pierce &c. But there's just no *there* there. It isn't, 'flawed' per-se, the characters, the romance, the plot are all good enough for a solid supporting role, but none of them are good enough to pull the weight of a whole novel and it's just - flat. This was touted as a calm, positive, character-focused book, so I wasn't expecting excitement, but the characters just aren't strong enough to support that, though they'd be perfectly fine in a book with a more compelling plot. Or for contrast, see *The Goblin Emperor* for a book where even *less* happens that still feels satisfying because the protagonist is compelling enough. ( )

I enjoyed it! The world is very interesting, the characters all feel like they go well together, and I'm interested in the intrigue as it develops.

I had absolutely no hope of keeping all of the family names straight, though. Yeesh. ( )

Though I'm partial to Shinn's work, this series is not among the books that helped to form that partiality. ( )