I was impressed and underwhelmed at the same time. On one hand, there is the very powerful, slow paced coming of age story that really takes its time showing how Tobin, the king's "nephew" grows up sheltered but with so many shadows hanging over him. The darker themes really worked for me and I enjoyed the characters and the portayal of childhood. The magic seemed well defined, like the author knows exactly what she is doing with it and what the rules might be, but is also mysterious to the reader and characters. There are a lot of scenes that hit exactly right and will probably leave an impact. On the other hand, while the prose is pretty, it made everything just kind of fly by. The novel lacks a solid structure and for a long, character focused book, I had hoped to get deeper into everyone's minds, Tobin's at the very least. At the very beginning, I was also confused who's story this was supposed to be. So I'm torn between "This is such an amazing book" and "This is fine". I might give book two a try.