So close to being a five star read for me!  I loved almost everything about this.  The world building was rich and so very fascinating, filled with myths and folklore, and of course, one of my favorite settings - a dark, magical forest.  I loved the characters.  They were wonderfully flawed.  The story was filled with whimsy and the writing was flowery in the best ways.

Unfortunately the pacing was a little off.  While the book started incredibly slow, the building of this world was so necessary, so that worked.  But then the pace either picked up to 100 or back down to 0.  I never found a flow to it.

Still, I'm so excited to jump into the next book in this series!  I've heard it only gets better, and I can't wait to find out what happens next!