Good solid first book.
Just finished and while its not as good as briggs' other stuff (obviously with it being her first) Masques was still a good read. More so in fact than quite a few other authors i have come across. Briggs clearly has talent in spades and has for quite a while.
Her characters where good. The evil Character (or as i like to call them, The Villain) was spectacular. seeming innocent and charming on the outside but was utterly filth and defilement in his soul.
My two other favorite characters being Aralorn and Wolf. There shape-shifting talent was remarkable and well explained.
I also really enjoyed there relationship together, it was like a complicated dance, with back tracking and side stepping around each others issues.
The other characters weren't bad but i didn't care for them like i did for Aralorn and Wolf. and the ae'Magi was so evil he was impossible to ignore.
The world was also fascinating in its own way. It had the usual forest, castle, kings, peasants etc. plus some ass kicking wizards, zombies, shape changers, dragons and myths/legends coming to life. On top of that it also has this funky mountain magic that screws with wizards/human magic... you know just to keep things interesting. :P
I enjoyed it quite a bit and im highly looking forward to reading the next book.
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