Back when I first got into fantasy fiction, the friend who’d first given me his Terry Pratchett books then let me work my way through the rest of his collection. I think most of what I read ended up having new copies put on my own shelves – and like this, not actually read (again) in favour of something all new!

What I remembered most about this series was the genetics – family trees in the appendices, showing recessive traits… I know, geeky. Well, none of that is in this first book, although that is one of the themes: the land we find ourselves in is split into various princedoms, with one unsavoury High Prince (isn’t there always?) – but also a non-partisan faction, called Sunrunners. These people have the ability to use light to contact each other over long distances, making them very valuable. Oh yeah – and the ability to conjure fire, making them pretty dangerous! The main friction in this volume comes from the leader of the Sunrunners, Andrade, deciding to marry one of her Sunrunners into a royal household.

It sounds harsh, but I think you can tell this book was written by a woman, as the action is a little removed (at least until the end) and the politics are rife. More, there are perhaps a few too many references to the different colour schemes of the various royal households, and the gems tied into those, etc. Not uber-girlie, but just there.

By the time the action picks up in the latter half, though, it really does pick up. Alas, so does much hand wringing and woes from the lead character, which did get a trifle annoying.

I wasn’t expecting much from this book since I’d never heard of it and I only picked it up because it was 50 cents at Goodwill, and most of the other books are 75 cents or something. So I was surprised by how good it was.

On the other hand, it wasn’t great. The characters were deep and well developed, but I got the sense that I was looking at them with big blind spots that I couldn’t understand. Kind of like the author’s head was in the way whenever I tried seeing or understanding a character. Or maybe the author herself didn’t quite understand the characters. But it did make a shot at least of making some decent character development and growth, which gave it big points. However a lot of the minor characters seemed EXACTLY THE SAME. At some points I got confused as to who was who, especially with background characters who had similar names. At one point I got really really confused because a minor good guy and a minor bad guy had almost the same name: Lleyn and Lyell. For a long time I thought they were one person until they appeared in the same scene 556 pages into the book v_v;

I also enjoyed the interesting magic which I haven’t encountered before.

However the dialogue seemed Middle Schoolish, and I didn’t like how all of the characters were “funny” but they were all the same kind of funny that wasn’t very funny. Like that was the author’s way of who had a good personality who who didn’t, basically, all the good guys were funny and had the same sense of humor. They were constantly stifling laughter and smiles, which annoyed me.

However, I still enjoyed the book.