Patricia C. Wrede is one of those authors who I will return to, regardless of how old I am and how clearly no-longer-young-adult I become. She knows, in a way that few authors do, how to create a world and involve the reader in it without ever resorting to obvious exposition or pointless discussions of irrelevant research. She trusts her readers to think and pick up on her clues and the result is an incredibly well described and thoughtful universe, filled with three dimensional characters and brilliant stories.
I really love this woman.