While not quite as good as the first one, this was still more entertaining than I've read in a while. Terry Goodkind is a masterful story crafter; having read the last one around a year ago, I still had no trouble jumping straight back into his world, as he re-introduced me to Richard, Kahlan, and Zedd, as well as the Mud People, and a couple more of the minor characters from the first novel. There are a few new ones, too!

The problem I had with this instalment was that, while the descriptions of people, places, and history were exquisite, there were a (precious) few times when they felt laboured. There are some info-dumps in this book, information that I as a reader needed to know to understand the context of a particular plot point, but that I felt could have been delivered in smaller, bite-sized chunks.

In other places, it felt as though the information I was given was even irrelevant, and put there, almost, as if the author simply had a word-count to keep to. The joys of working to the demands of a big publishing house, I guess.

Still, an above-average read, as I say. The next one was on my to-read shelf before I made it through the second chapter!