Recently had a chance to read Kristen Britain's first book, which I'm remembering now as "Green Rider", which is probably close but not quite right. I really enjoyed it a lot, mostly because it did NOT do something that just bugs the heck out of me in a lot of other fiction. It had a heroine who felt as real as most epic-fantasy heroes.
There's sort of more texture to that statement than might initially be apparent. One of my writer buddies writes primarily gender-themed fiction, almost always with strong, gritty, violent heroines, and it's sort of spoiled me for a lot of traditional fantasy. Regardless of historical accuracy (and there's more than one version of history, anyway), I'm a product of the modern age, and I like my fictional heroines to kick butt. Too many fantasy series, many of which have many other good qualities, lose me by giving me a heroine who wanders around in a gauzy dress doing plot-convenient magic while everyone else gets to swing swords and kill stuff. Or perhaps she just wanders through the book getting rescued by one strong man after another. The women I know aren't like this. My mom isn't like this. My wife isn't like this. So why would I want to read about women like this?
(Note: This is my personal opinion, and it's a hot button for me. As I said, it threw me out of novels that, in many other ways, I considered quite good -- so I don't imagine that this is a problem for a lot of other people. I'm also trying not to consider Cinderella-fantasy, in which the young heroine is unappreciated but uses magic or some other gift and eventually wins recognition by the handsome powerful guy -- because that's not epic fantasy. That's Cinderella-fantasy, in which a lot of the stuff I just complained about is good and right and perfectly appropriate.)
Kristen Britain does, I think, a great job of making a heroine who feels about as real as the average epic-fantasy hero. At one point, I got grumpy, thinking, "She's letting these magical friends of hers do most of the heavy lifting -- how empowering is this for a girl if she's getting help from fairies and eagles and ghosts?" And then I remembered how much help Garion got from the voice in his head, or how much help Rand gets from the Dragon in his head, and so on. I realized that I'd been sort of thinking in a double-standard -- it's perfectly fine for the young fantasy hero to get help from mentor-figures and spirits, but the heroines should do everything themselves.
So I got over that, and then I enjoyed the heck out of the novel. Her hero is a girl, and it's not a big female empowerment thing, it's just what it is. There are enough female warriors, generals, and spies in the story to make it clear that in this fantasy world, women are allowed to do anything the guys do, and they don't even do it with a "Wow, look at them do it all themselves" double standard.
Beyond that, the magic is fun, the characters are appropriately interesting and engaging, and I liked the fight scenes a bunch (I'm sort of a fight-scene snob). If you enjoy epic fantasy, I'd give this a try.
Just me, I guess. :)
Read the second one over the last few nights, and loved it as well. Now that she's determined to write a full series out of it, I'm impressed by the worldbuilding she's working in. Fun mix of classic tropes and new twists. I highly recommend it.