I'm delighted to report that this series keeps getting better with each book! 
 I suspected after reading book 1 that this would be a series which would get better as the author got the world-building out of the way and readers became increasingly familiar with the characters. And it's nice to be right! :-) 
 If you're a fantasy fan who's read the first book and weren't that impressed, I'd suggest you keep going with this series because I'm now expecting book 4 to be terrific. If you have to, do what I did and get the books from your library. At least that way if you're disappointed, you won't be out of pocket. And supporting your local library by using it is always a good thing.