This series has now reached "buy as soon as its out" status for me and, fortunately, the third book does not disappoint. I'm not sure if this was actually a better book than The Shadow Throne (which was also amazing!) or that the weight of a consistently awesome series behind it makes the book feel even better. Consistently being excellent is quite a feat when it comes to extended series.
And this series is everything I wished Game of Thrones was. Its got all the stuff I enjoyed from GoT, such as the secondary world narrative based on historical events, but jettisons all the stuff I didn't. Wexler keeps a tight focus on his viewpoint characters, limiting our perspectives to three main people (which means you can actually build a connection to the characters and people around them) and does a much better job at writing good people in bad situations than Martin ever did. Not to mention that Wexler clearly has much more respect for his female characters and provides all of them with the agency appropriate to their situation.
That's probably why the book is so successful for me - for a giant epic about battles and winning empires, this book always manages to keep the story grounded in the people and it's beautiful.
(Also, I can't believe that I'm STILL going back and forth about that one character whose motivations are inscrutable. I keep making up my mind and having the rug pulled out from under me. It's been three books! Seriously, how do you do that?)