So I'm finally making a concerted effort to go through my (frankly massive) pile of unread books I've accumulated over about ten years of bookselling at Barnes, and grabbed this one randomly off the shelf, thinking it was the first in the series -- turns out, nope, it's Book #3, and #2 and #4 were stacked behind it -- and DAMN, this was fan-fucking-tastic. Solid world-building, a quality historical setting, really well-written fantasy action, compelling characters and just enough humor/personality in the dialogue AND scorching romance???

J A C K P O T.

Obviously I am now back-tracking and picking up Book #1 (the one volume of the series I somehow DIDN'T have, wth). Downright ashamed of myself that I've been sleeping on this for over a decade.