I know there are a number of folks who are fans of the Malazan books by Steven Erikson, but I haven’t seen much discussion of the Malazan books by Ian Cameron Esslemont (the co-creator of the Malazan setting). So this is an FYI in case you weren’t aware of Esslemont’s books: He’s written two so far, Night of Knives and Return of the Crimson Guard. NoK is nice but not essential; it provides useful background information for the main series, but could be considered optional reading. RotCG, however, does advance the plot of the main series, so you’re gonna want to read it if you haven’t gotten to it yet.
Night of Knives, for those who are interested, is about with the night of Kellanved’s assassination. Return of the Crimson Guard deals with the consequences for the Malazan Empire of (spoiler for The Bonehunters) Tavore’s departure with the 2nd Army.
I’m not sure how important RotCG is going to be to the main plot. Erikson has already said that he’s not going to return to the Malazan Empire in the last few books of his series, so those parts aren’t likely to have an impact. The Crippled God does make some appearances, and one thing in particular happens near the end involving him that will certainly be important to the main plot, but other than that I don’t expect much crossover between Erikson’s upcoming books and this one.
Something to note is that this book is actually set just before Toll the Hounds. If you haven’t read that one yet, you might consider reading RotCG first. I believe that the intention was to publish them in the proper order but some snag held up RotCG.