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You're not wrong Richard. I've become less enamoured by epic fantasies over time. I've never been an afficionado, but I know that it's now more difficult for a fantasy book to appeal to me these days. It's one of the reasons I've embraced sub-genres like "new weird" and "steampunk".
So it's possible that I was reading this somehow expecting it to impress me by being different which is possibly an unfair expectation.
Did you like the magic system? While I was reading it felt like different aspects were being invented as it suited the story rather than being completely planned, but then when I read the section on soul magic at the back of the book I realised that a bit of thought had been put into this. It added to my appreciation of the story once it was clear that the author really did have a structure in mind and tried to remain true to that structure.
One thing that wasn't completely successful with me was the intrigue of the novel. It was a bit opaque in some parts with me not really following the machinations well enough to gain satisfaction when all the parts came together towards the end. And I felt that there were some time/location shifts which left me with a bit of a "huh?!" reaction. How a major player in a game of intrigue can suddenly traverse the continent and be present during a military strike and return without anyone else being the wiser was baffling to me. And there were times when the very nature of the magic system seemed to work against the story creating gaps in logic.
But although it wasn't "wow" for me, it certainly wasn't bad and I'm interested to see where the author takes it.
In the meantime, feel free to continue posting recommendations to indie works when applicable as I always assume that your recommendation will at least mean the story was of publishable quality and that's a pretty good filter.
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