The book was fine. It felt like an entirely different story from book 1. The characters were the same, but I didn't like how the entire story seemed to be based around magic. I don't mind a little Hague now and then but every little twist and turn in the book seemed to have some magic element to it. I gave it four stars because it is well written and I think most people would enjoy it, but it left me not really caring if I even read the next book. Brian Staveley is my kind of author. He knows readers need to fall in love, that we get invested, that ominous foreshadowing makes us nervous. He keeps me guessing, sometimes let's me be right about what will happen next, and again, in The Providence of Fire, he tells a story that leaves me thinking long after I've read the last page. I trust that when this author kills a character that I like, that it really needed to happen. I enjoy that sometimes good prevails, and the questions I ask get answered. In The Providence of Fire I liked getting more about the relationships between the three Malkeenian siblings and seeing a lot more of the Annurian Empire and its people.
