You can definitely tell that this is a 'middle' book. A lot of the book is setting the story up for the final book in the series. I read this straight from the Ambassador's Mission.

I wasn't very interested in Lilia's story, and a lot of what happens to her reminded me of Sonea in the original trilogy (not fitting in, being bullied, etc). It also felt like Trudi felt obliged to put lesbians in the story - the romance / infatuation of her character didn't feel realistic or believable to me, and quite forced.

I liked the Dannyl/Tayend story, too, it was interesting to see what would happen next with them. I found Lorkin less annoying in this book, too - he does sound a lot more mature and more of an adult by the end of the book. And, as much as I like Dorrien, he just felt like he was there to add excitement / intrigue to Sonea's storyline (she isn't really very central to these books) and I just felt a bit embarrassed for him really :/ I wonder if he will be back in the next one.

I will be interested to see what happens in the final book - I am expecting another war as everything hits the fan, but we'll see. I hate having to wait a year to find out what happens next! Though Trudi's writing style hasn't improved much since the first Black Magician book, and her character's remain a bit samey and characters often have similar storylines, she can make the books very readable and hard to put down. Though really I think this would have made a much better pair of books than a trilogy - I know publishers love fantasy trilogies but it always leaves a middle book that doesn't have much to it, and feels like mostly filler.