I'm only about a third of the way through this book, but am finding it a slog. I am a huge fan of epic fantasy so I expect this type of book to have a somewhat slow start, especially with regards to action. That's not the problem here. The story may be good, but the writing is causing problems for me.

Wurts uses an omniscient veiwpoint, which is OK unto itself. But she often changes POV's multiple times in a few paragraphs with virtually no hints to the reader that she has done so. It makes things confusing and difficult to read.

She also has a tendency to write a lot of purple prose (wordy descriptions) and then randomly slip something important in the middle of a 300 word paragraph that is easily missed because you've been bored to death with the eloquent description of what the root cellar smelled like.

The characters are unsympathetic. What I mean by that is that I just don't care about them. The dark prince is a brooder -- that's OK. But he's overly sensitive, and then goes off and makes incredibly stupid and rash decisions for no apparent reason. It's completely opposite of what you would expect from the character.

The light prince is a sop. He's currently useless and has been pretty much treated as baggage up to this point. He also makes silly decisions for the thinnest of reasons. This is the author's fault for not making a deep character. He's just a archetype with no personality.

There's another female character that might be important, but she just randomly shows up, does some action stuff, and randomly leaves. There's little to no hint what she's doing.

The magic used is not really described, seems to be immensely powerful, and can do just about anything. I suspect she'll spend a lot of effort coming up with random things like kryptonite to keep it from working at times.

The final thing, is relatively minor, but still bugs me. At the start, one kingdom is rich and prosperous. The other is very poor because they have lousy weather or something. So, they do the logical thing and become a kingdom solely support by piracy. It's an absurd concept but this is what is used as the initial conflict in the book. Everything about the dark prince is based this concept so it's a big pill to ignore.

Needless to say I am frustrated with this book so far. I may not bother to finish it.
I'm only about a third of the way through this book, but am finding it a slog. I am a huge fan of epic fantasy so I expect this type of book to have a somewhat slow start, especially with regards to action. That's not the problem here. The story may be good, but the writing is causing problems for me. Wurts uses an omniscient veiwpoint, which is OK unto itself. But she often changes POV's multiple times in a few paragraphs with virtually no hints to the reader that she has done so. It makes things confusing and difficult to read. She also has a tendency to write a lot of purple prose (wordy descriptions) and then randomly slip something important in the middle of a 300 word paragraph that is easily missed because you've been bored to death with the eloquent description of what the root cellar smelled like. The characters are unsympathetic. What I mean by that is that I just don't care about them. The dark prince is a brooder -- that's OK. But he's overly sensitive, and then goes off and makes incredibly stupid and rash decisions for no apparent reason. It's completely opposite of what you would expect from the character. The light prince is a sop. He's currently useless and has been pretty much treated as baggage up to this point. He also makes silly decisions for the thinnest of reasons. This is the author's fault for not making a deep character. He's just a archetype with no personality. There's another female character that might be important, but she just randomly shows up, does some action stuff, and randomly leaves. There's little to no hint what she's doing. The magic used is not really described, seems to be immensely powerful, and can do just about anything. I suspect she'll spend a lot of effort coming up with random things like kryptonite to keep it from working at times. The final thing, is relatively minor, but still bugs me. At the start, one kingdom is rich and prosperous. The other is very poor because they have lousy weather or something. So, they do the logical thing and become a kingdom solely support by piracy. It's an absurd concept but this is what is used as the initial conflict in the book. Everything about the dark prince is based this concept so it's a big pill to ignore. Needless to say I am frustrated with this book so far. I may not bother to finish it.