Overall, I feel like this prequel to the Tearling trilogy is unnecessary. You don't learn anything new (except for maybe that little tidbit about Kelsea's father...), you just get a more in-depth look at the events you were already vaguely aware of from the trilogy. I also could've done with fewer focalizer characters, some I just didn't care about as much as others. Nevertheless, the novel somehow sucked me in because Johansen is a great writer and I am very tempted to reread the original trilogy now. I can't wait for her to come up with a completely new fantasy series though.