Great characters, not battle heavy, but still with a sense of danger throughout. It's the first book in the series, so there is a lot of setting the stage, getting introduced to a lot of characters, but I never felt overwhelmed or lost. It also didn't "stall" in the middle, but kept my attention the whole time. It flowed very well. I also liked that it didn't take forever for the characters to start to intersect. If you are a big fan of war driven fantasy, then you'll probably be disappointed. I'm not, I prefer character-driven fantasy, so this was right up my alley. Will read the next one.