4.5 stars

I really, REALLY enjoyed this story. I am honestly surprised that it doesn't have more ratings/reviews.

I was nervous that this book was going to be difficult to get into, but I had absolutely no problem in that regard. There isn't a lot of setup to the plot, and I think that worked very well for this story. This had a lot of things that I like in high fantasy, namely court/family politics and a big magical competition, but it's set in the real world, with all that that would entail.

I really like the friendships that grow in this book. I wouldn't have been mad if there had been a bit more of that, to be honest.

I really like that this is a stand-alone fantasy book, but I do think that it could've been longer and I would have been totally satisfied. One of my only issues was that some of the climactic scenes seem to be relatively short and simplistic. I liked the story, but some things happened a little too quickly. I don't know that I ever worried about any of the decent characters making it out of the story alive. The stakes could've been raised a bit I think and it would've been even better.

All that said, I still had a lot of fun listening to this book and I'll be on the lookout for more by this author.