It's hard to discuss why I ended up disliking this novel without giving away at least some level of spoilers, so consider yourself warned:

POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD!

I was ready to give this one a much higher rating right up until the ending.

The master manipulator is a trope of fiction that needs to die. People aren't capable of running complex plans with multiple levels of deception at a level where everything ends up working out just the way they planned. Yes, there are people like Richelieu in real history, but their most complex plans are incredibly simple in comparison to those we find in fiction. Yes, there have been many double-agents throughout history, but they don't pull off the kind of bullshit we see in this novel.

I'm pissed because this book looked like it realized this. Both the protagonist and her antagonists, despite being very competent people, seem to make many mistakes throughout the story. Just like even very competent people in real life do. Instead, we find out at the end that everyone was just playing along to the great script written by the master manipulators behind the scene. Blech.

I might come back to this after further reflection and give it another star for the originality of some of the themes, namely that of colonization and economics. It's those factors that attracted me to the book in the first place, but I honestly dislike the book right now, so one star it is.