Solid entertaining fantasy with engaging characters, a good read, but regrettably for me, not as good as the hype I'd read. I'd expected more - more romance, more dash and derring-do, more plot twists. I expected author Flewelling to make me love these characters, this world.

She doesn't quite manage to do that, but Seregil shows promise as an interesting character and I'll continue reading this series to find out what happens to him.

Another disappointment: this book ends as a cliffhanger to encourage continuation with the series. I wish the story had been created so it could also be a stand alone story, and not left hanging as it is, forcing you to get the next volume to find out the rest of the story. I think that this could easily have accomplished the goal of getting you to read the next book without chopping out half of the story to put into the sequel, could easily have ended as a stand alone story while at the same time set up the next book.

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oh, I liked this one.
The characters were engaging and the pace of the book was fast.
I'll definitely keep an eye out for the next one.

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I started this series because I enjoyed the Tamir trilogy so much and I trusted Flewelling to deliver. The sideways homo-eroticism in the Tamir books is closer to the forefront here and I don't really mind, except that the romance part feels like it's much more in the forefront. If I want a romance novel, I'll just go pick one of those up. If you don't mind your fantasy fiction with a romance novel themes, you might enjoy this one.

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amazing! thieves, gods, love, and mystery all rolled into one great book!

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This book follows young Alec of Kerry. The book opens with him in a dungeon being tortured and prepared to be sold because the local lord is turning paranoid and believes anyone on his land to be a spy. Alec is rescued by a real spy who brings him along and starts teaching him the trade.

The book opens very slowly - it wasn't bad, but nothing going on made me interested in either the characters or the plot. I found the opening to be a bit silly. A lord decides to lock up and torture anyone he doesn't know on his property? Later we find out that he's not the only one in the area that has reach this level of paranoia. And of course the real spy just happens to be tossed in the same cell and just happens to decide to bring a young boy who knows nothing about spying with him. I can understand rescuing him, but there was no reason to bring Alec along on the rest of the journey besides "intuition".

Eventually the plot picks up and I found myself drawn into the story, even though a lot of it still didn't seem to have reasons for happening. However, after that bit of excitement ends the book returns to the way it was at the beginning. The excitement I felt kept me reading until I was only about 50 pages from the end. I found myself skimming the rest.

Overall, there seems to be a lot with the characters that doesn't really have a reason for happening, or only happens because one character insists and the rest go along with him. I didn't feel any real connection to the characters, or any interest in what happens next.

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Flewelling does a very good job with plot and building characters you grow to love. Then you discover some are gay. Gay content comes later and naturally. The Nightrunner series is a fine example of great fantasy whose characters happen to also be gay, without the drama and angst of being gay.

Sorry folks, I'm keeping the copies I own.

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I loved, loved, loved the Flewelling's Tamir Trilogy, but I just couldn't get into this one. I wasn't able to connect with the characters and I really had to push through to finish it. I am going to give the other 2 books in the series a chance though, since the series comes highly recommended.

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