Keeping it "Rahl"

So, as I stated in the previous post, The Law of Nines was a new book by an author whose big series (Sword of Truth) I'd already read. Near the end of the first hundred or so pages, readers of this book learn that the main character's name is Alex Rahl - so maybe the Sword of Truth series was only partially ended. Knowing some of the ancient history background to the story has been quite interesting - although not as useful in the immediate plot of this book as I'd prefer. However, I'm not quite surprised that it's not more helpful. I'm not quite sure how Alex and Jax are going to get out of their current trouble (although I haven't had direct evidence that Jax is there too (but the implication is strong). I look forward to finishing the book so that I can know what happens - although I won't be surprised if this is only the first book in a new series (the last one had at least nine books that were each at least about 500 pages and sort of one short one (more of a novella) - it's setting was the same world as the rest of the series, but rather earlier in time than the series - only one character was in this book and the series).