I started reading this series when watching the recent HBO series and I loved the first three books - could hardly put them down in fact - and then I got to this one and the momentum faltered. I'm not sure what has happened -is it a glut of fiction when I normally read mainly non-fiction, is it too much of a good thing all in one go or is it an author that has perhaps lost his way? Perhaps it's a little of all three. Whatever it is, I struggled to get through this book in parts. I feel that some of the different story lines should at least be coming to a resolution by now but instead, some characters have apparently disappeared and new ones have arrived and new plot lines are developing. I want to know what has happened to the missing characters and really couldn't get enthused about the new ones - in fact I found them extremely irritating. I'm not going to get the latest book yet - perhaps taking a break from Mr Martin for a while might rekindle my love for this series - at least I hope so.