Fallen thorns was not what I expected at all which is okay because it's a fun read anyway. Only in the last 'act' does the story get truly dark and the tonal shift is quite a twist. 

I think the characters and their relationships with each other are very fun as well though Lucy especially suffers from some one-dimensionality, mostly because we aren't given an indepth backstory on most of the characters. (You could read the novellas Baxter is working on but really it should be a vital part of the story.) 

Unfortunately, you can also easily tell Baxter is a first time author. The writing suffers from some growing pains in terms of its pacing, some cliche dialogue and a slight lack of personal style. Nevertheless, these are all things that can only get better over time and I'm excited to see what they'll write next. 

So, in short, the story didn't blow me away as much as I'd hoped but I had a good time reading it!