I wanted to like this more than I did. The word that kept coming to mind over and over again was "glossy." I liked Mallick but the characters were all pretty flawless archetypes of themselves (the IT guy was so cliche it's embarrassing) and the story is fairly predictable. A feel good, virtuous war story with a simplistic magical vaneer. It's an easy read which is what I was looking for but I found myself just trying to get through it by the end of the third book. My first time reading Nora Roberts and probably my last.