Seven books into the series, Terry Goodkind decides to half-abandon his main characters and look at his fantasy world from a different point of view. And to begin with, it works – the complete immersing in another story, without constantly cutting back to Richard and Kahlan, really does add something here.

We meet up with Jenssen, who turns out to be another of Darken Rahl’s bastard offspring. She’s spent her life running from the death sentence imposed upon her for the crime of not being gifted. Soon she’s tangled up in more than she can imagine…

The story is pretty well handled, and I do admire the author’s picking up of events from the last book but from the opposite view. However, the conclusion is just far too rushed, and very out of proportion with the rest of the book. Having followed Jenssen, and her half-brother Oba in a mirroring thread, I got to a point where there seemed to be a LOT of tying up needing done and a very slim number of pages in which to do it. The sudden payoff seemed a bit disappointing, really.