Less Regency than I was lead to believe, which was okay, since I didn't know what Regency was before I started reading the book. It's not quite a standard "magician takes in an orphan as apprentice" - Kim's sex and background provide a little bit of a twist there, and an interesting one at that. Ultimately, though, I found myself wanting to be through it. The main part of the story was both boring and confusing - the mystery of the silver bowl wasn't that interesting, and there were way too many characters to keep track of. In the end, though, my interest seemed to have returned, since I felt compelled to read [b:Magician's Ward|169885|Magician's Ward (Mairelon, #2)|Patricia C. Wrede|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172371237s/169885.jpg|1047578] immediately after. Of course, that may be partly because I have the two books in my home in the form of [b:A Matter of Magic|7278720|A Matter of Magic|Patricia C. Wrede|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1272320388s/7278720.jpg|8455012], so it was pretty convenient.