My first Jenkins was quite the success. Though classified as a romance novel, this book develops a robust plot aside from Raimond and Sable's coupling and Jenkins's writing is dense with historical information. This book feels rich and well realized. As well as the non-romantic elements of the plot work, the romance itself is also fun. Raimond and Sable have good romantic banter and I really bought their connection to each other. My only criticism of that part of the plot is that the central conflict is resolved between them too quickly/easily but I would rather a book err on the side of not enough conflict than stuff in too many contrived obstacles to keep our couple apart. 
 I enjoyed this muchly and look forward to reading the other two volumes.