"A small pleasure can be a great comfort when one travels"…

I started reading Fitz's story before I had my daughter, which feels like a lifetime ago. Those few days in the blazing weather when I devoured the first trilogy of stories are imprinted upon my mind as a happier, quieter, relaxing time.

"So many things we have never spoken about. So many things that shame me less if I am the only one who knows them."

The tension here is evident, and although it took me almost half the book to really sink in and be a part of the flow once again, it was very much worthwhile. Many, many scenes were just so on-point, so absorbing and unavoidably poignant that I can't decide if I wanted the book to be longer to enjoy the words or shorter to see what happened next. Chapter 19 was quite breathtaking, but the story as a whole had many highs.

I don't think anyone would pick this up as n introduction to the characters, there's so much you already need to know, and even I, having read the other Fitz books but not the Liveship series, felt that there were many strands I was missing. The ending, too, was quite solemn, almost inevitably anticlimactic, and yet I can't take points away because the story overall was so ... nice? Nice isn't the right word. It was grim, in places, hardly nice. and entertaining seems too frivolous, and enjoyable too shallow and nondescript. I suppose the best way of putting it is that this book closed things off. Characters, story lines, plot points, they come to a gentle resting place here, and so the word I'm really looking for is satisfying.