A decent, low-stakes genre fantasy. Probably the least favorite I've read of Lackey's Valdemar series thus far, but it's not bad. Most, if not all characters are removed from any high-stakes action that happens, so it feels a little boring until the very end when the characters are finally involved.

Probably would only suggest picking this one up if you've read other Valdemar books and are looking for lore. I feel like the next two books in this trilogy will have a lot of good lore, even if this one was skimping on that.