I loved this book and immediatly took up the next in the series, but i cant help but admit that i thouht Ian Irvine seemed to dwell a little bit to long on some things and not long enough on others. But how i loved his introduction!! With the young chronicler telling a knew and exciting tale of the Forbidding. I had hoped though, throughout the book that much more would happen between Lilian and Karan instead of things happening to them. It was also difficult to realize that a book looking so small would hold so many pages and adventers. The pags were amazingly thin and the book seemed to have but 3-4 hundred when it really had about 640. This book is worthy of 5 stars and so much more!!