I'm not sure if this book is a great improvement of the first one in the series, or if the characters simply grew on me. To be honest, this book was again a tad too slow-paced for me. It only became interesting in the final quarter or so. Most of the book is literally a slow, muddy slog of dragons and keepers working out their problems, differences, hormones, etc. I honestly think that this and Dragon Keeper could easily have been shortened into one book of max 500 pages. 

What's to like though, is the strong character development, with Robin Hobb time and again excels at. It's honestly insane how much her characters develop. I also enjoyed that this book was a lot queerer than any of the other books in her series so far, making this whole universe a tiny bit less old-school.