I very much enjoyed this collection of short stories! In some ways, they are the type of stories I wanted to read early on the series, giving us a broader view of the comings and goings of daily life in Araluen.
At the same time, many of these stories couldn't have been written earlier, because they nicely tied up the loose ends I complained about in earlier books! We finally find out what happened to Foldar, Morgarath's second in command who Halt was supposed to be chasing down when he got himself banished. We get to see a bit more of both Jenny and Gilan, and it was fun to see everyone together again for Horace and Cassandra's wedding. In fact, this collection of stories had such a nice finality to them that I am surprised there is still one last book in this series... I'll certainly plan to read it, but at this point, I think this book would have served as a good ending to the series.
The only thing preventing me from giving this book 5 stars were a few minor complaints along the way. For example, in "Death of a Hero", I just wish Halt had told Will's mom, before she died, that her husband died a hero. And in "The Wolf", it really bothered me that Will seemed to act out of character by brushing off Tug's warnings of nearby danger. You'd think that Will would perk up and be more alert at the first sign of Tug's rumblings. And then, it bothered me even more that Will never apologized to Tug for ignoring him. Perhaps if Will had heeded Tug's warnings, things might have turned out differently!
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