About 20 pages in, this book went from "I have no idea what's going on" to "I still have no idea what's going on, but I need to find out right now, why can't I read faster?"
I picked this one up because it was recommended to someone else as a mix of Guy Gavriel Kay and Robin McKinley so how could I not? Neumeier shares Kay's sense of carefully constructing countries in conflict and McKinley's precision in deploying romance that is both subsidiary to the plot and enmeshed in it. But this is very much its own book as well - Neumeier's interest in articulating the magic behind her world and playing out its consequences through the text makes this book at times twisty and confusing, but always compelling and, by the end, completely un-put-down-able.