I devoured this so quickly. This isn’t a quick or light read, in fact it felt a bit slow quite a lot of the time, but I liked it so much I couldn’t stop. 

The main character Cazaril is a broken, beaten down man prematurely aged past his 30s by his experiences, and we spend a lot of time with his thoughts looking backwards and inwards. There’s such a richness to this introspection the story lingers on, and to the layers of meaning in every interaction with the other characters in the story; like Iselle and Betriz, younger headstrong intelligent women who manage to explode with personality, intelligence, and energy in a restrictive medieval culture. All of the characters, even the minor ones, seem to have their own earned, interesting history that would only take a little tugging to reveal.

The world feels so lived in and full of realistic complexity, especially religion, which takes more of a center stage about halfway through the book. I love how Bujold writes and she makes the world really vivid and so saturated with history; the story makes religion center stage by about halfway through, and all of how it's interwoven with everyone's roles, actions, rituals, and language is seamless and believable. 

This is self contained and really enjoyable as its own complete story; later books take place in the same world but they're all supposed to be mostly standalone. I hear Paladin of Souls is even better; really looking forward to that.