Light, but quite charming.

To be honest, I felt that this series got worse as it went along, which makes it somewhat hard to rate the compilation. Bridge of Birds was fantastic, easily a five-star book. The Story of the Stone didn't come together quite as well, IMHO, but it still had many elements I enjoyed. And I found Eight Skilled Gentlemen generally uninteresting, other than the character of Hosteler Tu.

I liked this (though not as much as the first one) until the very end, where it abruptly veers off into WTF territory. I'll probably still pick up the sequel when it comes out, though.

My major sticking point with this book is the beginning, where the protagonist's completely justified anger at being turned into a vampire is brushed off and laughed at by everyone, including her friends. I'm not really sure why this was necessary, since later in the book her love interest apologizes for the accident and explains that he, too, was turned against his wishes and can understand how she feels.

I liked the rest of the book okay, but those first chapters still bother me a lot.