It's possibly a measure of how good this book was that I was halfway through before I realised that I was reading the second in a series. While I'm now keen to read the "prequel", I don't feel I missed anything by not having read it first. This is very much a stand-alone book.
It's also very well written and beautifully conveys the manners, atmosphere and conventions of the time in which it is set. Well, with just a few glaring and disappointing exceptions. At one point the narrator notes that a character "could care less about _____". Ouch. Not only is the correct phrase "couldn't care less", but this common mistake is very much twenty-first century vernacular.
I was very taken by the story, and while the ending might have been predictable in that the hero always gets the girl, there were many times when I couldn't imagine how it could possibly come to pass. The characters were larger-than-life, and yet still believable. It was also laugh-out-loud funny in places, and generally a joy to read. Not gripping, but fun to come back to.
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