A lovely, gentle read that transports you to a simpler place and time. I found the characters charming, and I adore Jo Walton's take on magic here. The inherent ambiguity in both the magic itself, and whether it's real or simply in Morwenna's imagination, is intriguing, and keeps you wondering about it all the way through the book. I also liked Mori's internal dilemmas over her karass.

I didn't always find Morwenna herself to be the most sympathetic of protagonists, but I certainly did identify with her - especially with her feelings of being an outsider, and of course with her love of books in general, and SF books in particular. In many ways, this novel is a love story - not love between characters, but love of reading and love of SF.

It takes a lot to get a 5-star rating from me - that's mostly reserved for those books that I love beyond all reason, and read over and over. But this came closer than most.

Heartily recommended.