This was a difficult to rate. It went back and forth for me from loving it to an occasional meh moment. The tension built really well, but I found myself unsatisfied with the ending...which is always a bit of a knife in the side when it comes to my enjoyment of books.

The movement of the plot is pretty good and there is a lot of action from beginning to end, including a lot of interesting happenings along the way. The characters of Nadya and Malachiasz are well-written, though Malachiasz is a terribly frustrating and waffly type character. He's terribly unreliable and drove me a bit nuts. I really wanted to like him, but ARGH. Serafin is a moderately developed character, but needs a bit more strength. He has a lot of magical power, but there is a lot about him that is just weak and disappointing. As for the secondary characters, I will admit that they were fairly flat and operated merely as placeholders and plot devices a lot of the time. This was frustrating and I could have used a bit more depth in these areas.

The writing itself is overall good. There are some awkward and maybe unrefined moments, but for the most part this read smoothly. I always have a bit of trouble with any narratives utilizing the Eastern European Bloc as inspiration. I don't know why, but I have trouble with the linguistics from this area. The interspersing of cultural dialect added to the ambiance of the story, but did occasionally cause a bit of stoppage for me as well.

The tension built really well, but that darned ending! It should have felt like a major cliffhanger, but instead just left me..."meh". Regardless, I'm giving a slight pass since this is the first of a trilogy and I feel there is a lot left to explore. I am interested in the plot and there is enough unfinished business to keep me interested in where the remainder of the trilogy has to go.