Here's the whole book in a nutshell: "Boy loses girl, Boy can't even find girl until the next book". So, I am still wondering how that could take 667 pages, and does not even produce an ending.There were some creative elements to the plot but the preaching and rehashing from previous books (Goodkind can cut and paste with the best of them), diluted what could have been a welcome break to Goodkinds downward spiral.I have read all 9 of this series and they startd out GREAT but it seems each one has less meat in it. This one was just a sappy story, and reduced the great Richard Rahl to just a High School kid who lost his girl. This thing should be in the Romance section and NOT in the Science Fiction/Fantasy section. How the mighty have fallen: both Richard Rahl and Terry Goodkind!