This is such a beautiful start to the Fitz and the Fool trilogy. This is very much a character driven book even though there are plot threads throughout the novel. I loved watching the growth and changing relationships between characters. This is a book that came at just the right time for me, and it was so healing. Out of all the Fitz books so far, I think this one is my favorite. It was well paced and so incredibly touching. The exploration of grief is so phenomenal and realistic. The cliffhanger at the end had me desperately wanting to jump right into the next one!

“I lived my grief; I slept mourning and ate sorrow and drank tears. I ignored all else.”

“There are endings. There are beginnings. Sometimes they coincide, with the ending of one thing marking the beginning of another. But sometimes there is simply a long space after an ending, a time when it seems everything else has ended and nothing else can ever begin.”

“To every creature is given both a place and a time, and when that time is over, we have to let them go.”

"And there it was, that stone-dropping-into-a-well plunge of my heart I kept it from showing on my face or in my eyes...The loneliness that can never be filled by anyone except the one whose loss created the absence; well, then, perhaps it was the same."