Fitz is back! 💖 This book is set ~15 years after the Farseer Trilogy (and incorporates some minor details from the Liveship Traders as well). Fitz has been living in isolation, but soon his old life comes chasing him into a new adventure.

Reading this book was both wholesome and heartbreaking. It's soo good to see all the characters coming back together, it feels like coming home after a long, long time away. The Fool is back under yet another guise, and some of the other characters as well. Reluctantly, Fitz yet again does his duty, and goes through quite a bit of character development.

The heartbreaking part of this book is of course

Nighteyes and his steadily declining health. Having had dogs and watching them grow old, I can really feel how hard it is to go through that. Sadly, it's a big part of caring for an animal that all who are bonded to them must go through.

This book, similarly to the Farseer books, handles animals so well. Having grown up with animals, I love reading how all these animals in this book are not only animals, but characters, no matter if wolf, dog, cat or horse. I don't think I've ever seen it done so well in fiction. 

My only complaint with this book is that

Fitz should really have just told Dutiful what was going on earlier. I understand it's difficult because of the cat/woman, but it was a bit infuriating. My second complaint was that the ending felt a bit like a Deus Ex Machina, with people arriving in the right place at precisely the right time

. 

This book was such a pleasure to read (despite it's heartbreaking aspects) that I devoured it in a week. I'm looking forward to book 2 and 3 of this trilogy.