It's been a stressful couple weeks and what I really needed was an easy reading YA fantasy to help me escape a little bit. And to that end, this book was perfect - I read the whole thing in one day. The plot was fast paced and the author kept things moving forwards nicely. Also, I appreciate the story line itself, that despite many cliche touches (I'll get to those) the actual action was done well. Some parts were too easy to guess (she's the RANDOM orphan saved from Winter while everyone else was hand picked...yea right), but the motion of the story, Noam's role and Spring's response to him, her capture and time in the camp, Theron's "capture," and her FINALLY figuring out her connection to magic and saving the little boy all made the reading of the cliche parts better. Though Sir being alive is a little TOO convenient... There were many parts of it that were kept "realistic" - as in Meira did things that seemed reasonable for her age, size, and position. For example, her subversive act in the work camp was to work over days to weaken and bring down a bridge while extra soldiers were on it...nothing unbelievable, but it achieved it's aims. My hat is off to that. There were some unreasonable, special snowflake (see what I did there, she's from Winter), type situations as well (like dude, no one makes a connection as quickly as she and Theron did, and also how is it possible that the two guys she's ever really met are both super into her and hella attractive...). The part about the magic is interesting - conduits, a person becoming a conduit, bloodline magic through male vs female lines, the theory behind the Decay and (though convenient) that Hannah had to wait til Meira was 16 to appear (and why she had to be so cryptic is really unclear also), helped set the scene for the end of the novel. Honestly, I really hope that Angra's obsession with Winter and Hannah and why he was so determined to crush their spirit instead of just killing them all off, and why he couldn't get to Mather earlier if he was magically watching them all along, is explained better and in more detail as the story moves forwards. All in all though, my biggest gripe with this book is the writing itself. The story could have been told much better, the dialogue is odd in places, Meira's inner thoughts are repetitive and basic, and honestly, just the way many of the relationships are written (Meria and Sir, Meira and Mather, Meria and Theron, and even Meira and Nessa) are just too quick and easy and surface. And the beginning was really hard to follow - too many names (which to be honest, I don't really like most of) and places mentioned once or in passing too quickly to really get a hold on, with a lot of past meaning and references that are not well explained to start and some not even better explained later... Really everything could have used more depth and development in the writing.