As with the first 2 books in this "trilogy" easy and enjoyable reading.
However it felt more like the first 2 were a duology and this book links it to the next trilogy.
I started the Conclave of Shadows about 20 years after reading the Serpentwar saga, so I can only vaguely recall the past history and characters brought up.

I like the story but found Kaspar to be a rather bland character. He seemed to be more real and almost likeable as a villain in the previous 2 books. In this book he just seems to go with the flow and get dragged along without making too many decisions himself.
Fair enough he has woken from the spell he was under and perplexed by his previous actions but I find his switch from villain to a basically good man a little too quick and easy. As is the forgiveness and acceptance by all the people whose lives he tried his hardest to completely ruin for no real reason.

Anyway onto the next trilogy....
( )

Far-fetched, disappointing end of the Conclave of Shadows series. Quite unlike the other two books, in storyline and characters, as well as in style of writing. Too bad, mr. Feist. ( )

This book took a slightly awesome direction, breaking the usual storytelling mold we've gotten used to in Feist-land.

The previous novel's villain just became this novel's hero. :) He was so crafty, so unpredictable and cool, he needed an encore. :) And he got an encore, exiled in a distant land, in chains, and left to his own devices.

And yet, he gets transformed in his journey. :) Not bad. Not bad at all. :)

Oh, and the Geas had nothing to do with it. :) Or the revelations that the whole world was about to become a feeding ground for evil pouring in through thousands of portals. Or the discovery that evil really is madness. :)

I think I had more fun with this one than I have in the last five or six novels. Maybe more. But then, I'm a sucker for redemption novels. :) ( )

Exile’s Return is labeled as the third book in the Conclave of Shadows trilogy, a subseries of Feist’s larger Riftwar Cycle. Unlike his other subseries, this book did not bring the current storyline to a clear conclusion. It ended not exactly with a cliff hanger, but with a looming (if not unexpected) problem revealed right at the end of the book plus a major unresolved mission.

For the most part, I enjoyed this story as much as the previous two in the trilogy, although it really veered off on a different path. The second book had wrapped up the main story surrounding the main character of the first two books, and this book has a different main character, one we have some reason not to be very fond of. He isn’t an unsympathetic character, but I didn’t warm up to him as much.

I thought the story was pretty interesting. It started off as one thing that I liked and that was told well, but I wasn’t sure I wanted an entire book of it. Before I could get tired of that, things got a bit stranger, even a tiny bit creepy for a brief time, and my interest grew. Then we started to learn how that fit into the bigger picture and that was interesting too, and there was some good action at the end.

I wasn’t quite prepared for the incomplete story after all the previous subseries had ended more conclusively. For me it’s not a big deal since I’m reading the whole series more-or-less all at once, with usually just a single-book break between each subseries. Still, it left me undecided on whether to take my usual between-subseries break after this book or jump straight into the next subseries while I still have the momentum going. I decided to go ahead and take my break anyway, but I’ll use one of the shortest standalone books on my list. If I had it to do over again, I’d have taken the break after the second book and then gone from this book straight to the next subseries. There are only 3 subseries left to go, and I’m wondering if the next two will both end in a similar way. Hopefully the last one won’t! The title of the very last book certainly sounds final. ( )

The change in point of view was jarring, but the main character showed true growth, which was interesting in this context. ( )