I really enjoyed this. It's not perfect - my usual dislike of fairyland aside, while the women characters were fascinating in their own ways I found absolutely all of the men crashing bores, which is a problem when the two primary male characters are the love interests of the truly fantastic pair of sisters who are the heart of the story. I kept thinking "Come on you two! You can do better than this, surely!" Also a bit frustrating are the short glimpses of Imogen's supposedly genius fairy tales, which are really pretty average - this would be less of a problem if the mentor character didn't gush so over them; it made me doubt her taste and sense. Oddly (despite the first person) when Howard isn't trying to convey Imogen's work the writing is much better, I thought.

Still the women's characterization is excellent, the relationship between the sisters is excellent, and the language is lovely. I think this is a first novel? Very assured if so - and if Howard writes more I'll definitely be reading them.

I can only hope those future books make out in the cover art stakes better than this though, because that's a truly uninspiring cover and R&R deserves so much better. Was Saga trying to spin this very interesting story as "worthy but dull as ditchwater"?