Surprisingly good.

Both the reviews and the author himself will be more than happy to tell you the story contained in the book, so if you don't like historical fiction, I wouldn't recommend it to you. If you do, however, I think it's a brilliant piece of writing and I enjoyed it a lot. Is it the best thing written ever? Of course not. But I'm giving it five stars exactly because it's better than you would ever suppose.

What I marveled at the most was the historical accuracy, way beyond what you would expect from a person not coming from Poland or even Central/Eastern Europe. As one myself, I was able to spot some inconsistencies, and of course we are all prone to diachronic romanticization of 'the olden days', but I think the author did a very good job, and his attention to details must be praised.

I don't think I'm going to go for the other books in the trilogy, but it was quite a nice reading, given that I suppose I bought the book in the middle of the night, with limited sobriety, and started reading it right away.

Finally, I'd like to know where the 'Polish proverbs' came from. Maybe they are very archaic, but having lived in Poland all my life, I've never heard either one of them.