I don’t like giving spoilers, so I’ll keep it general. I really liked the story, very good character development, great environment and magic descriptions, good pacing, and an interesting world build. He uses the same or very similar phrases a bit too often, but other than that, it’s very enjoyable.
Mr. Stifel, though, detracts greatly from my enjoyment of the series. I’ve listened to all of the books in the original series, so not bad enough to make me return them. His voice is nice and he does a good job with world and action sequences. However, his character voices are very one note. The inflections are very hit and miss. It was hard to decide who was speaking at times, be it main character, side character, male or female. I would love to hear the story read by someone like Oliver Wyman or Luke Daniels. It would make the immersion into the story universe much deeper.
The story saves the audiobook, but I would prefer a different narrator.