I can't tell you how many times I rolled my eyes at some scene or event. I liked Phedre, for the most part, but found her love-interest Joscelin to be annoyingly weak. He's suppose to be her body guard, but he's a wimp.Carey created a beautiful society with an interesting culture and completely lost me by using our own world as the setting. Was it just too difficult to create her own version a barbaric society, so she planted the Vikings in the story, instead?I've been told that you have to read the series to understand ("love") the whole story, but I just can't get myself to pick up the next book.