I received this book on May 29, 2007 from a reader in Pennsylvania through PaperBackSwap.com.

I finished reading this book this morning. It was a disappointment. Mostly because having read the Assassin's Apprentice series by Robin Hobb and loving them so much I practically read each 700+ page novel in one sitting, I expected so much more from this author. Reading this book was frustrating. The story itself was interesting, or at least it felt like it could be interesting, but it was bogged down somehow. I felt like I had gone to a nursing home and was politely listening to a story being told by a very old man who definitely had a very interesting youth but now can't get the story out of his brain in a timely manner. It's all cloudy and slow and by the time you get to the end you and he both have forgotten what the point of the story was in the first place. Was there a point to this or was this just the ramblings of an old man? The characters were interesting (all except maybe the main one who I wanted to kick and tell him to get over himself), the social structure of the world was interesting, and the story itself had a lot of potential, but darn if I wasn't bored silly most of the time. It took me forever to get through this. Oddly enough, though, as soon as I finished this I wanted to pick up the second book in the series and find out what happens next.

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

I'm sending this to a reader in New Hampshire through PaperBackSwap.com.