Kellen, the main character, is instantly presented to us as something of an underdog. Not a Mary Sue like many fantasy protags, he's struggling before he's even started, but he's got intense cleverness on his side. This taster of how he uses trickery to overcome his own weakness has me itching to read more - the cover, with its playing card imagery, and the blurb which mentions a talking squirrel cat are only helping me along to feel like this is a book I could really love.