My mother had recommended these books of Chalion to me this past summer or so. I have read a couple of Ms. Bujold's books in the past and enjoyed them, although there is at least one of her novels that I could not get through.

Having just finished The Curse of Chalion, I delved right into this book. The character of Ista is a carry-over from the previous book, and though I liked what was done with her in the first book, I was a bit dubious of what could be done with her in this one, just based on the description from the first book.

I was pleasantly surprised. I liked that this is a woman of 40, still beautiful, as she had always been beautiful (she had been a queen after all). I liked that once she shed her shackles imposed by her family, she grew as a person. I really liked this story of her. I think this is the first novel of Bujold's that I've read with a lead female character. I think she writes her well.

I had no trouble getting into this novel as the world had been set-up in the previous novel and it is only 3 year later, established pretty early on. There were twists and surprises and the climax occurs later than one expects, which is nice. Bujold tends to give waves of stories within the one story so that you have sort of waves of climaxes.

According to her bibliography on the back of Curse of Chalion, only Heinlein has won more Hugo Awards for best novel than Bujold, which I didn't know.