I read Blood of Elves a couple years ago. My vague recollections...
It stood fine on it's own. I hadn't read any Andrzej Sapkowski's works prior to starting it, and had no trouble following along, although the setting and characters were actually introduced prior to it's release in a set of short stories (I think most of them were translated to English and bundled as The Last Wish later on; you might want to read that first?). The setting was a fairly standard swords-and-sorcery with a northern European flair; the book has suspenseful passages but a more wandering narrative overall. Also note that it is book one of a trilogy, and at the time I read it I couldn't find books 2 and 3 in English (although that may have changed since), and Blood of Elves didn't have a particularly satisfying plot resolution standing alone. It tends more towards a gritty perspective - the tone reminded me of the Black Company series by Glen Cook, although the two series are quite different in the details. It's not one of the weighty tomes that US publishers often let fantasy authors get away with - I think it's about 250 pages long, so it's quite reasonable to read it in one sitting if you have a nice block of free time (I believe I got my ebook copy in the evening and finished it before going to sleep).
It hasn't really stuck in my memory, so that's all I can really say about it.
