It had lovely, leisurely romantic interludes plus fast paced action. I was absolutely glued to it.
This trilogy is quite liberal socially. The women are effective warriors and often the leaders while the men typically follow. Gay relationships are accepted as equal with straight ones. One of the lead good guys is gay.
It's really neat how Elspeth and Darkwind work together as a team romantically, magically, and militarily. Sigh. I wish I had a relationship like that. Of course, it's probably just as unrealistic as the magic. Probably the ending is unrealistically happy as well, but then you sort of expect that in this type of book. At least it's not depressing.
I still think there are entirely too many super-powerful mages and adepts running around in the world of these books. You sort of get to the point where you think adepts (the most powerful of the magical people) are normal and everyone else is stunted.
I liked all the beautiful, powerful animals and animal-like sentient characters. They are very rich and diverse.