At the beginning I was somewhat cautious about the book, having had several disappointments with highly-acclaimed books set in early 19th century. But boy, was I in for a pleasant surprise. Not only manages Novik the era setting quite well, she combines it with the dragony stuff, which surprisingly, fits in too! And she brings these dragons and Aerial Corps people so successfully to life that, while reading the book, one quite forgets that dragons had no part in Bonaparte's conquests. :) Also, my daughter who is a dragon fan was quite enthusiastic about the book, and has by now read through the first 4 novels of the series.

I loved most of the tracks. In Russian his heavy accent gets annoying sometimes, but the voice and the music compensate for it. All in all a very enjoyable selection.

This is about the whole trilogy. And there be spoilers.

I loved the first book of the trilogy, but already the second took a turn for into the land of the pointless. I mean, Dannyl was a great character in book 1, why waste his potential and send him on pointless travels that add absolutely nothing to the storyline? Okay, so Canavan wanted to imitate Tolkien and create an entire huge geography with different lands, cultures, languages? Well, didn't much work out, she's no Tolkien. It only wastes space in book 2 and after a while, I started skipping the travel parts. Also, she's brave in making Dannyl homosexual, but once again, what is the point? Why add this tidbit and build on it when ultimately it adds nothing to the storyline? After the end of book 3, it has neither brought any benefit or any additional peril to them, so why, why, why? Was Canavan under orders to write a minimum number of characters or what? This magical cave that he discovers and closes - once again, why, what is the point? Canavan just loads up stuff and then drops it along the way.

Savara - it's rare that I've seen a worse done character than her. She's the ultimate Mary Sue - super powers, all knowing, super barbie beautiful, jumps in, beats up the boys, gets to shag the author's favourite character, and when things go awry in the universe, what does she do? She stands aside! She never tells us what her part is, what group she belongs to and what is their mission. She is so obviously not part of this universe - your typical author's self-insert "Oh, I'm sorry but the Powers That Be do not allow me to intervene, I'm just here to look pretty and get a character laid..." Gah. Fanfic written by 13-year-olds is typically like that, Canavan should know better. She *could* do better, as book 1 showed, but apparently book 3 was hurried or under-edited or something.

Same with the super-spy character (Raven? Who after having lived 15 years names their chatacters Raven?) - he's brought in with great aplomb, they start off, and before they even reach their destination, the journey is broken off and the character disappears without having accomplished anything or added anything to the outcome.

And while the author's attention is caught up in all those pointless detours, the main plotline suffers. The fact that Akkarin and Sonea have barely stepped out o Kyralia when they return again, makes the whole subplot of their banishment quite ridiculous.

Another geographical issue - with only nine days of travel from the border to Imardin (I may be wrong there, but somewhere I think they mentioned nine days), and with merchants going there all the time, is it really plausible that Kyralia knows so little of what has been going on? I didn't buy it. Medieval Europe knew what was going on in Middle East, for gossakes!

So, to sum up, book 1 was excellent, book 2 could have done better without those travels, and book 3 should be entirely rewritten. Sad, because book 3 contains the pivotal events, that explain things that have been going on since book 1, things that are really essential for the trilogy. So it's all the more unfortunate that book 3 is so bad, really.

I bought this book based on the glowing reviews about how funny it is. Well, it was a disappointment. There was very little funniness. And, even worse, no character development to speak of. They saw each other, they wanted to shag each other, and voila, there you have eternal love. As cheap as cheap can be. I would have at least wanted a good show of how and why they fall in love. Don't bother to buy.

This is a cute titillating bodice ripper (quite literally, I'm afraid), but if you're looking for something Austen-esque, look elsewhere. Quinn is definitely no Austen. Austen, for one thing, knew what she was writing about. Quinn apparently has no idea. Despite setting the plot among the Ton of the Regency era, she doesn't seem to have the slightest how they would have spoken or acted. I'm not even speaking of technicalities, like words or phrases that are no longer used (and that make Heyer's gorgeous works for a non-native speaker like me very difficult to understand!) - it's the very basics, things they say or do that strike one as very modern and immediately throw you out of the storyline. Things like, for example, the way they address each other. The things they speak about. The things they do. The characters are, for Regency sensibilities, utterly brash, vulgar and unfit for any polite society. Not to mention the shirt buttons. :) I understand most of Quinn's works have been written in the age of the Internet, so she really has no excuse for not doing her research. It's all up there.

Also what disgusted me was the utter b****iness of Daphne in taking advantage of Simon. Whether taking advantage of someone drunk is rape or not, the very assumption that she is right in making Simon break all the vows he has made shows unbelievable self-conceit and disregard for Simon. She's a cheating, conniving, pretending little - well, just the usual type whom Simon so much seems to despise.

In addition, the constant spacing out of both lead characters reminds me of bad fanfic written by teenagers - the usual filler when the author does not know how the characters might react or what they might say.

I've given it two stars because, despite its many and huge faults, the story was well paced, romantic (at times) and sexy (well... if one isn't too much disturbed by the modernness). Perhaps I was too generous. Can I give it one and a half?