Books like Passage

This is the third book in Bujold's SHARING KNIFE western frontier-flavored fantasy series. We're finally getting away from relationship drama here, as the plot takes our main characters, Dag and his wife Fawn, along with Fawn's sometimes callow brother Whit, down the Mississippi Grace River to the sea, experiencing life on a flatboat with a few adventures along the way. There are some interesting hints that this is an alternate version, or perhaps a post-apocalyptic version, of our world. Dag is still trying to figure out his magical powers and how to bridge the gap of suspicion and misunderstanding between his people, the Lakewalkers, and Fawn's, the non-magical farmers.It's a rather leisurely trip down the river, with a few sandbars and shoals but not much in the way of rapids, both physically and metaphorically speaking. The pace doesn't really pick up until the last quarter of the book, about a hundred pages from the end(view spoiler)[, when our characters need to try to take out some river bandits, and Dag finds a rather alarming new way to use his powers (hide spoiler)]