Shadow Magic

I picked this up because I loved this author's middle grade series as a kid, and I remember liking Daughter of Witches, but this just was not that good. Very generic heroic fantasy, lots of wandering around (not surprised to find out parts of this were based on a tabletop campaign), too many deus ex machina to shake a stick at, and an out of nowhere romance. Blindingly goofy political system.

Had that annoying thing I hate in fantasy where there's a badguy race where they're all just evil for no reason. At one point it looks like you're going to get a point of view from a Lithmern character but it turns out he's a slave from a goodguy race who gets a big deal made over him and then pretty much immediately dies. Huh.