My initial inclination is to give this book 4 stars because I really liked it!! But I almost want to give it 5 stars because of what it achieved, namely keeping my attention for a month. For a variety of reasons, I tend to shy away from books that serve as a nightstand all by themselves, but this one kept my attention, in spite of its wandering and meandering path.

At 900+ pages/26 disks, you don't really expect a tight fast paced story. What you get is an exploration of characters, all of them flawed. You get a look life in an alternate history version of England (and Spain and Italy). You get to see how magic and fairy changed things, and a hint of how they might further change things.

And in the end, it isn't tidy. Threads stick out in all sorts of directions, and life goes on. For me, it was worth the month.