OK - this was a really fun read. It's a YA novel with an interesting approach. The action is good, there's a good mix of court intrigue, the characters are deep enough, and the writing is quite good.

What I need to do is look into the historical pieces to see if they have any basis in fact - if it does it would be interesting, particularly to Americans (like me) that know very little about the region of Europe that is the setting for the novel.

I have to admit that I was getting pretty worried about the 'romance' side of the novel, but the author managed not to go down that path too far (I really was worried for a bit, but she pulled it off without the whole thing getting out of hand).

Overall a really nice read with an interesting premise and interesting characters!