This is the last published book in Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series (as of July 2005). The series is more enjoyable if you read it from the beginning and the title of the first book is "The Wizard's First Rule." My best advice is to work up to "Chainfire" in the order the books were intended.Having said that, though, I thought this book was great. It isn't at all what I expected and has a serious cliff hanger ending, but it was wonderful and exciting just the same.I tend to like this type of fantasy and I like series because there is more time to develop characters and relationships. These books remind me a bit of the Katharine Kerr Deverry series, though I think hers are for slightly younger readers. If you've read any of the Deverry series and enjoyed it, you will probably like these too.