I didn't like Malice immediately. I found the frequent POV changes choppy, the lead character Corban insufferably whiny, and dialogue rather stilted. 
 It was in the third or fourth hour of reading that I fell in love with the book, and all the things that annoyed me became the reasons I grew to like it very much. The frequent POV changes were indicative of ongoing action in various places at once - the plot was too broad to be seen through one POV for too long and I loved that. Corban's sulkiness and growing pains became something endearing. He's not perfect, but he's not a grimdark-fantasy-type anti-hero who offs people left and right while occasionally doing a world-saving good deed. The dialogue was suited to the pseudo-Celtic/medieval feel the series was going for. In fact, other pseudo-medieval fantasy writers (*cough*Brent Weeks*cough*) could take a page from John Gwynne's book and write dialogue that's more apt for the setting and less like a series of "fucks" and "cunts" strung together to form one terrible sentence. 
 The best thing about this book is that I actually learned to care about most of the POV characters - even the blindly loyal Veradis. Sure everything went south in the last act, but we had an entire book to set that up. I got to know the characters along the way. While everything isn't spring and sunshine, even the most evil of the main characters (Evnis) has that smidgen of goodness that gives me hope - not for him, personally, but for the fate of this world. Give me too much darkness and I'll stop caring because honestly, what's the point? But a little bit of goodness and happiness before the coming storm? That should be protected and fought for. I'm happy I saw this in Malice. 
 This book is highly recommended. Onward to Valor!