I definitively would have liked this book more if I had read it before The Fate of The Tearling. I liked getting to know Mace/Lazarus/Christian's backstory. And I loved getting to know more about Queen Elyssa and why she was the way she was. But honestly this whole book seemed completely pointless because of the way the Fate of the Tearling ended. Why should I care about any of these characters and their backstories, if they end up having completely different lives?