I keep telling myself that my genre is YA, and then someone will suggest a fantasy novel to me, and I'll be reminded of my love of the genre all over again. To be fair, I tend to steer clear of them unless they come highly recommended, because there are a lot of bad books out there billed as fantasy epics. There's also the fact that fantasy tends to suck you in, and refuses to spit you back out until you've finished the series. (A feeling I first became familiar with when I read The Sword of Truth series in high school... oh Goodkind, how could you pull me in only to start writing horrible, awful novels in the end?!) 
 The Warded Man was one of those books that whispered "it's okay, five hours of sleep is more than enough" as I read by booklight at midnight. I did not want to put it down. The alternating POV's reminded me of George R R Martin, in that I would get sucked into one storyline, only to have it disappear for several chapters. Of course, by the time I made it back to Arlen or Leesha, I was entrenched in Rojer's story, and I was upset to be leaving it. 
 Arlen is the main character of this book, and we follow him from a tween to an adult, but we miss quite a bit of his story. (Like Jesus, in the Bible.. no coincidence, since I believe that who we're meant to liken Arlen to.) I enjoyed his story, and I think I'd have been content reading the book entirely from his perspective, but alas, it was not meant to be. 
 Leesha is a girl from a tiny Hamlet (Cutter's Hollow), and she's desperate to grow up and have babies and be an adult. We meet Bruna through Leesha, who is my favorite character in the book. Bruna is the town Herb Gatherer, which is basically their healer, and she doesn't take crap from anyone. 
 Rojer we meet as a small child of 3, and then we don't see him again until he's much older (I think 11 or so?). We follow these three main characters in their adventures, learning about their world and the different cultures that surround them, until their lives intersect. 
 Brett has done a wonderful job of world building. It's hinted that we're following this story several centuries after today, after humanity has become complacent about the Corelings (demons). Wards are written on the walls, and on stones, to create wardnets to keep us safe from them, but they're a tenacious bunch, and will keep trying to find a way in. Because we started to believe in science and not in corelings, we forgot how to fight them, and are stuck with only defensive wards. 
 I loved the different cultures that Brett created, and how he contrasted the hamlets to the cities. Arlen is very much the savant character, the one who's never really taught things properly but knows them anyway, but he didn't take it to an annoying extreme so it was tolerable. 
 I look forward to book 2, and reading about the adventures of our main trio.