This book is full of the usual cliche things you might find in a fantasy novel. The plot was ok. A little slow to start, but it did grab me in the beginning. The characters are like stereotyped caricatures. You have the handsome priest, Damion, the wise old woman Ana, Jomar, the macho chauvinist guy, Lorelyn the tomboy, and Ailia who is the Mary-Sue of the story. They don't really have a whole lot of depth, and mostly stick to the stereotypes they were assigned. Gag me. I didn't care much for the plot twists that neither surprised me nor were very interesting.It might sound like I didn't like this book, but that's not true. I did enjoy it enough to want to continue the trilogy. I would almost put it in the "so bad it's good" category, but it never really reached that terrible level. It came close at times. There is some cringe-worthy dialog for sure. I also admit to having a weakness for dragons. Dragons automatically make a book cooler for me. The dragons in this don't show up until near the end, but they are pretty cool, so points for that. There are also other mythical creatures that show up, but they really seemed to serve no purpose other than to say "hey, here's a magical creature blocking your path." It's good if you like that sort of thing like I do, but they have to be there for a reason.A flawed book, but not a bad read by any means.
