I liked this trilogy overall and enjoyed reading it. I think the world is an interesting one. 

BUT...

This book (trilogy) has too many main characters in relation to the length of the story, meaning that none of them get any proper character development. In the same vein, by having two story lines that has very little (*cough* nothing) to do with each other, one of them just feels in the way. I feel Lilia and her story line could easily have been its own book(s), leaving this trilogy to actually focus on the traitor story more. There were several plot points that deserved so much more attention (word count!) than they got and some of them were just swept under the rug with no or weak resolutions.

I think these books tried to do a little too much, ending up with a little too little of everything in terms of exploring the story line and the characters (especially the new ones). I would still recommend them though, especially if you liked the Black Magician books.