I enjoyed the first book, The Witch Hunter, but I loved this one. The action was spread nicely throughout the story, the characters continued to grow and develop, and the ending was both sad and hopeful (like all the best stories, IMO). My one problem was that I didn't read the two books back to back, and I had a little trouble remembering details about events and people from the first book. I guess I'll just have to reread them both at some point.