This book had some great potential and the world building was nicely done (the strong parallels to Europe made it easier to get into the "landscape") - but in the end I could not really empathize with the heroine and the story could have easily been told in half as many pages. Drawing the story out and splitting it into two books it unnecessary IMHO but then again, I have not read the second one yet and probably will not do so when it comes out, either. What I especially disliked (but which other people might not think so badly of) was how obvious many things were to the reader while the heroine thought about them in lengths and then still came to the same (wrong) conclusion she had made before. Not to mention that she was sick for nearly half the book and "didn't have all her wits together" - a great excuse for being whiny and letting other people run your life. For all that, I still liked the book and this is just me being annoyed at the fact that the high expectations I had were not met ;)