Books like The Sword and the Flame

First I'd like to say please don't judge all Lawhead books by this one. His later works are MUCH better. However this book was really not worth reading. The characters are cardboard cut outs. Every single character behaves exactly as you would expect them to except maybe for Quinton whose ridiculousness mood swings were just annoying and out of proportion with what had happened. I kept hoping Theido would slap him in the face. Seriously that would probably have solved half their problems right there. And all the female characters randomly decide to go to Durka for no real reason. Honestly if my son had been kidnapped I would be where he was most likely to be found. One last thing the dialog is horrible. I winced as I read it. This book's one saving grace is the fact that it is fairly fast-paced. If this had devolved into a wheel of time esk inner monologue of each and every character I would have burned the book.