This book is the beginning of the end for the sword of truth series. It picks up shortly after the events of the last book, with Richard waking up to find out that Kahlan is missing and that none of his companions remember her existence.

I really enjoyed this book, though not as much as some of the others in the series. My biggest problem with this volume is that a lot of time is spent with Richard trying to convince the people around him that Kahlan is real and needs to be saved or running around to different places to try to find information to support what he knows to be true. Goodkind sort of spends way too much time on this, as it is apparent to the reader that Kahlan is real, since we have read eight books up to this point with her in them. All the other characters constantly assuming Richard is wrong, dumb, injured, or crazy is unnecessary and just makes you dislike them, for the most part. Remember the "chicken that is not a chicken"? same deal.

Ignoring all that, it does accomplish its goal of introducing another danger to magic and life in general that Richard must find some way to overcome, namely the Chainfire spell that has affected Kahlan.

The best part of the book is the Beast that is set upon Richard by Jagang near the beginning of the book. Its tendency to attack in a random manner is a brilliant addition by Goodkind, since he has sort of established that Richard can solve any problem that has a logical solution. Since the Beast isn't really based in logic, it makes for a believable threat to Richard.