I think my biggest problem was that I remembered about 25% of the first book. I unsuccessfully tried to find a recap, but figured that sequels usually pound details of the first book to you in the beginning. "The King Slayer" did this to an extent, but I still feel like I spent so much time trying to remember who characters were. I still don't even slightly remember some of the characters from book 1.

Unfortunately, this took a huge part of the book away from me. I just didn't enjoy it as much as the first. It was still an interesting story with a lot of action, but I couldn't quite get into it.