I was a bit disappointed with this book, although that may have been because my first encounter with McIntyre was in her Hugo and Nebula winning novel, Dreamsnake, which does kinda skew one's perspective.
This story is grounded solidly in the court of the Sun King, almost too solidly, as I do feel that the narrative sometimes wanders off into the "look how much research I did" category. Still, the setting is lovely and the characters are, overall, quite sympathetically drawn. She doesn't make the mistake of giving anyone overly modern opinions (well, except around bloodletting. But everyone does that). If anything, the settings and surroundings threaten to overshadow what is, essentially, a story of first (re)encounters. The people, mythical beings included, are less compelling than their hair.
That was my biggest problem with what is, overall, a well told and meticulously researched story of what it means to be sentient and human - a staple of science fiction as seen through a fantastic and historical lens. It's just a pity that the lens so powerfully overshadows the story, relegating it almost to unimportance in the face of what the court of the Sun King was imagined to be like.