I really like Towers of Midnight a lot. There's a ton of stuff happening and getting resolved in the book. It's structure is a little different than many of the earlier books with a lot more jumping back and forth between the various storylines, rather than having blocks of chapters. While The Gathering Storm was written to focus nearly entirely on two main plots (Rand's descent and return from darkness, and Egwene's unification of the White Tower), Towers of Midnight has a far broader scope to it. Every major plotline has significant events occur, but Mat and especially Perrin's storylines clearly dominate ToM.

Summing up a couple spoiler free thoughts on each of the plotlines:

Rand- I was absolutely fascinated every time he appeared on the page in this book. The changes that he went through at the end of The Gathering Storm had profound and far reaching effects on his character; he actually reminds me a lot of Tam now with a sort of quiet understated wisdom and power.

Mat- Lots of great stuff with Mat in this book. The difference between Brandon and RJ's Mat is still noticable, but much less so than it was in The Gathering Storm. One letter that he writes in particular had me rolling on the floor laughing. I've always thought that one of the reasons Mat was so great was that he always got the best supporting characters around him to act as foils for him and that was definitely true in ToM.

Perrin- I really liked him for the first four books, and ever since he returned from his "vacation" in Book 5. From Book 6-12, pretty much his entire plotline revolved around Faile whether it was their marital disputes when they were together or his obsessive hunt for her once she was captured. I didn't like the way Faile treated Perrin and I found myself losing respect for him for not standing up to her. So, I wasn't happy when I heard that Perrin would dominate ToM...

That being said, I was riveted by Perrin's section of ToM. The first chapter or two were a little slow and reminded me of the bad Perrin storylines from 6-12, but very quickly, his storyline kicked into high gear. Brandon does a great job of writing Perrin (I kind of suspect that just as RJ had a little more of himself in Mat than any other character, Brandon might have a little more of himself in Perrin than the others) AND he also does a great job of writing Faile. For once, they started acting like adults and actually really communicating and working together rather than continuing their domestic cold war. Easily the best Perrin storyline since Book 4, and probably the most I've liked Faile EVER.

Egwene: She continues to be pretty well written by Brandon. I (mostly) like the woman that she's grown into, although she does do one thing in particular that really frustrates me as a reader (even though I'm forced to admit that if I was in her position, I'd almost certainly have made the same decision). She has a much smaller role than she did in TGS, but several significant things happen during her plotline and more than any other plotline, hers sets the stage for A Memory of Light.

Elayne: Probably the least eventful of the main plotlines, but very fun to read. I don't think it's really a spoiler to mention that her and Mat interact (both of them being in Caemlyn at the end of TGS) and any time those two get together is comedy gold. Elayne's storyline actually serves mostly as a nexis for a lot of the other major plotlines to come together around hers. I thought Brandon did a good job writing Elayne and she didn't feel off or anything like that.

Minor threads: There's some great stuff with the Black Tower and an absolutely FASCINATING storyline for Aviendha. Don't want to say much more about them here because it would spoil them.

In closing, Towers of Midnight was a very solid Wheel of Time book. The broad scope made it feel a little more like Knife of Dreams than The Gathering Storm, but bear in mind that I thought both of those were better than anything since Book 6. I don't think you'll be at all disappointed!

-TS

P.S. In case you haven't heard, do NOT read the Glossary until after you've read the book. There's a couple major spoilers for events in the book (and I'm not just referring to certain long-standing mysteries being resolved).