4.5 stars. In this third installment of the Sharing Knife series, we discover that malices aren't the only threat to the denizens of the wide green world. This book takes a break from the Lakewalker-Malice war, but we are treated to a quaint little tale of Dag and Fawn journeying down a river in a flatboat encountering adventure and a multitude of dangers and obstacles along the way. I loved the story as well as the setting and atmosphere for most of this novel, so vivid that I could picture every single detail in my head. More than once I wished I could be the one sailing in a flatboat living that life on the river.This was a great read and I still love the main characters, but in this book Dag definitely steals the show while I felt Fawn's role diminished somehow. I swear, throughout the entire thing all she seems to do is cook and shop for food. Boring! On the other hand, Dag gets to do all this cool stuff, like play mentor to a couple of young Lakewalkers, experiment with magic (groundwork), and discover he has crazy healing skills.
I also realized something with this book -- Bujold needs to come up with more ways to describe her characters' actions and behaviors! There just seemed to be an awful lot of "head tossing", "lip twitching" or "body curling" going on. By the time I got to about the fifty-seventh time someone tossed their head or twitched their lips, I was about to tear my hair out and scream.
