I am kind of torn about this one.
My biggest problem with this one is that way too much of it is basically just "Death Before Dragons".
The author appears to have wrung all possible content from the Death Before Dragons series but desired to keep its success going yet lacked the courage to begin something fresh. And I am not referring to it being part of the same world. That is completely fine and expected even.
I am talking about how everything is derivative. The same mannerisms, the same world-view, the same kind of inciting incidents and personal motivations. Even the quirks of the other characters directly one-to-one map to a character of the earlier series.
The by far worst and most jarring example of this is the love interest. He has literally the same voice as Zav. Same mannerisms, the same way of speaking, and the same word choice. It's literally just Zav but as an elf.
And the story doesn't have the same patient slow-burn romance the original series has either.
It seems like the author tries to get her substitute characters to be as close to the original characters as fast as possible.

On one hand, this obvious cloning of the original series was very disappointing and I almost dnf'd the book multiple times because of it, but on the other hand, the author is still a talented and competent writer and the plot was intriguing enough which ultimately kept me going.

There apparently are quite a few people that have either not read the original series or were simply wishing to be able to spend more time with the same (or very similar) characters. And I don't begrudge any of that.
But at the end of the day, the disappointment over the straight copy of the original still wins out over the new-ish plot and the generally enjoyable writing.

I will not pay any money for the second book but if I get the chance to borrow the audiobook from somewhere I will probably check it out to see if the author only starts out at a similar place and eventually goes into a new direction or if it really just stays an attempt at repeating the success of "Death Before Dragons" with next to no changes to the original formula.

Edit:
I got the chance to borrow the next two books and after reading the second book and dropping the third, I have to correct my previous criticism about the missing slow-burn romance. Upon reflection, I realize that the romance in the first book seemed to move quickly, but ultimately stalled out and became more of a one step forward and two steps backward situation.

While I stand by my other original criticisms, I also want to add something that became exceedingly more obvious. The inciting incidents for the main character do not feel quite right to me. She seems to go along with things without considering other options, which feels out of character for someone who is presented as self-reliant and headstrong. But she gets swept along by the events unfolding around her and only ever reacts. This lack of agency undermines the believability of her character. ( )