Well, it DOES kind of-- okay, I can't think of any way to say this without being spoilerish-- so, yeah, Montmaray 1 does end kind of oddly in ways that I can't say without basically saying how it ends, but it is kind of just cliffhangering for the next book, in which many things established in book 1 are pursued further and more things come up... yay, vagueness. I think when I first read it I didn't even know there was going to be a second book, though...