A few words for those who are familiar with the original Paks books: there is overlap at the beginning; though events were shown from Paks's and Kieri's POVs in the original, other people had their own experiences, somewhere else. You don't need to re-read the whole monster unless you want to. Connecting links are (we certainly hope!) made clear, but not every detail (obviously) repeated.
A few words for those who never read the original Paks books but might be interested in these: you do not need to read The Deed of Paksenarrion first, though, being a writer, I hope if you like the new books, you'll want to read it later. I tried for a balance of backstory that would keep new readers oriented enough, without the level of detail that would imply you needed to know everything that had gone before. Should you be interested, a lot of background material is online at the Paksworld website and there are frequent updates to the progress of the later books in the group, and some interesting discussions, at the Paksworld blog.