This series is so good, I realized after about a month of feeling like every other book was at best 4 stars, they hadn’t gone down, This one just raised the bar unrealistically high. It’s hard to pick something specific to compliment but if I had to give a few the book has that “real” feel by having a good mix of the characters own goals and problem solving and “random” things solving or causing more strife you get the feeling of someone trying their best but also taking advantage of any opportunity that happens to come up. Obviously it’s a world filled with magic and the author chose every detail but the illusion of reality is top notch.
The one thing that surprised me about the series as a whole was the author excelled at keeping character growth gradual and reasonable, So many times newer authors in this genre start as a small fish in a small pond then suddenly becoming Godkings that they don’t know how to keep interesting writing after that. I’m not certain I’ve read a story where the character’s growth and the challenges they rose to face were paced better than Cradle.