This is a great installment of the Swords, Spells, and Stealth series! I loved it. (And I really loved listening to the audiobook. Roger Wayne does such an incredible job with these books.) My only problem is that now I've caught up, and I have to wait for the next one to be written, published, and narrated.

If you, like me, didn't remember exactly where we left off with the previous book, don't worry. Enough backstory is provided during this book to remind you of what else happened in the series. (And if you're new to the series, I would not recommend starting here. You really need to know what happened in prior books to understand where we are in this one, and who everyone is.)

One of my favorite parts of this book was something I hadn't realized I wanted: More time with Dejy, Grumph's wizard mentor and teacher. Dejy was an unexpected delight in this book, and I looked forward to each of his scenes. I also enjoyed seeing Gabrielle grow into new aspects of her powers, and realizing spoilers about Eric's parents before it was made obvious (though not explicitly stated) in the text. Thistle's part of the storyline was a bit more expected up until the very end: and the very final bits of the last scene have me looking forward to the next book even more than I'd thought possible. I have always wanted this story to continue, but now I'm more excited than usual.

If you are a fan of D&D and fantasy novels, this is one series that I'd say is worth a try for sure. Even if you're not a big fan of D&D you might enjoy this as well, since the D&D part doesn't take up a whole lot of the page time. Still, the concept of "what happens to the NPCs when the players are done for the day" is one that I've seen come up in stories before, and this is hands down my favorite version of that story. I'd recommend NPCs (book one in the series) to anyone who's even remotely interested. ( )