This was a delightful surprise: I picked it up because it sounded like a SF I could manage (I'm trying to up my SF reading this year), and instead I found a novel detailing the emergence of a society and a culture with a historian as protagonist.

You know I'm all about history and religion in my SFF.

I absolutely loved my time with Portia and Bianca and Fabian

, and although the deus ex machina of the conclusion bugged a little, it was absolutely set up and believable in the context of the story

.