I finished this, but man oh man was it a slog! The story only started moving for the last hundred pages or so. I didn't particularly connect to any of the characters, they all felt weirdly hollow. There's a plot line that leads to pretty much nowhere (Melana) and while the world building has the potential to be intruiging, the author tells us so little about the world it's difficult to get interested. I am no fan of info dumping but SOME information is necessary on occasion.
The books is also way too long (could be about half) and not much happens to justify its length. In fact there are long stretches where nothing gets done and then a lot of issues are solved quickly and conveniently for another long boring stretches to follow.
To sum it up, I don't think I'll go for the second installment.