Daniel

Justyna has proven herself to be a highly imaginative and skilled writer. With every book she writes she displays incredible attention to detail, character development and originality. Not only are her stories intriguing and her characters deep and diverse, they are all very original and exciting. They are also quite unpredictable, and after getting into these books you'll realize that you can never trust your initial assessments.

As always, the author demonstrates that a lot of work went into making the histories, cultures, belief systems and geographies of Naor. This is clearly a world the author is passionate about, and it comes through clearly in her writing.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading through this book, a collection of three stories set in the same world. The storytelling is rich and brings you into the author's world which is deep and fantastic; it's clear the author has put much work into the world and its history, its denizens and characters.

The author is not afraid to do the unexpected, and in telling her stories she shows that no character is truly good or bad, and no character is safe; there is no allegiance to the immortality of main characters here. This gives her so much more freedom to carry along her stories without holding to tropes or cliches. The lack of these things and her originality was a fantastic break from other more predictable stories.

What I enjoyed most, apart from a world the author has clearly fleshed out -- and such dedication I admire -- is the depth of characters. There are many, but it doesn't seem like it; each one is unique and intriguing in their own way, and no matter their purpose, I found myself attached to all of them. The combination of characters and world made these stories a great read.

I would definitely recommend this to any lover of high fantasy and rich lore.