In the Vanisher's Palace is a stylish novella, without much below the surface. Yen is a failed scholar and healer's assistant in a harsh post-apocalyptic world. A race called the Vanishers bent the world with horrific diseases and departed, and in their wake society has curled on itself, with Yen's tiny village ruled by harsh Elders who discard the weak and useless. When Yen's mother calls a dragon to heal the sick child of the village head, Yen finds herself sacrificed to the same dragon.

But Yen isn't eaten. It turns out that the dragon Vu Con also has the shape of a beautiful woman, needs a tutor for her two children, and is a healer herself. But before love can blossom, Vu Con has to learn an important lesson about letting people make their own decisions, and Yen has to decide to care about her happiness.

On the plus side, the science-fantasy setting has just the right mood, with a lot of mystery and verve. But the romance, particularly Vu Con's side of it, never really worked for me. As a near-immortal with immense powers living in a palace of vanished post-humans, she was surprisingly mundane.