Ok, I can't honestly say that this book is as good as many others I've given four stars to, but the story just improved so much since the beginning of the first book, I feel like it's earned some "most improved" merits. The writing is still rather simplistic (though better), and the dialogue especially could use some improvement, but the story moves along and is engaging enough for me to deal with other shortcomings. So while I can't say I really appreciated this book as much as many more polished ones, I can honestly say I enjoyed it, and look forward to it's final installment.
I do have one gripe though. When reading fantasy there must of course be some suspension of belief, as if we were to judge this world and characters by our own standards, we'd constantly be disgruntled with all the little inconsistencies. At the same time, I think that (for example) if you are using horses in your story, unless you explain that your horses are somehow different from ours, it behooves an author to learn enough about horses to avoid a inadvertently huge mistake that throws the reader out of the story. I'm not saying that the handling of horses was especially bad in this book though, what really got me was the princess. While I'm no expert on royal guard duties, I had to suspend a huge amount of belief to go along with the idea that a guards duties to protect the heir to the throne from a raging battle can actually be superseded by the whims of a love struck teenage girl. Or those of a military general in a military action, for that matter. If they can just be overruled THAT easily, they are pretty useless. In this case it was essential to the story, but had me repeatedly shaking my head.
To end on a positive note though, this story is certainly an enjoyable, fast paced read, and I hope the author continues to polish his craft, I feel like he could be great.