Death's Mistress

The Sword of Truth series is in my list of favorites, so I grabbed Death's Mistress without a second thought once I learned it was in the same universe. My guess is that Goodkind is hoping this book will be adapted into another TV series. He even works in the “recap of the last episode” at the beginning of many chapters. Basically, I'd read the same key dialogue twice. It was frustrating as well as a bit confusing (Haven't I been here before?). In other words, I'd basically read the same key dialogue twice.

Death's Mistress follows Nicci and Nathan as they explore the Old World to bring them the good news of their new ruler - Richard Rahl. I'd strongly recommend reading at least a few of the mainline books first. Although Goodkind does a good job of including 2-3 sentence flashbacks and overviews of back story to make this book standalone, you'll miss out on the full impact of some of the dialogue if you haven't read the other books.