I won this ARC through a goodreads giveaway. Thanks, goodreads! 
 If you've paid attention to my reviews at all, this is so opposite everything I ordinarily read. Historical romance? Rebellion and murder? What? 
 Despite that, I found myself rather engaged in the story. I liked the way it was presented, shifting between character viewpoints so we see the whole picture. When we first meet Sir Geoffrey he is bullying common folk to pay taxes (unfairly, I might add), but from Geoffrey's perspective we see he believes these folk to be rebellious and needing punishment. He suffers himself, with an unnamed skin ailment, in which the outside world only spectulates and pokes fun at. It's these kinds of things that get into your mind and make the characters concrete. 
 The event to start the decline of it all is Alice stealing a rare orchid, the lady's slipper, from a neighbor's property. Alice believes that only she can properly care for it, and sneaks off in the dead of night to obtain it. Not only is her relationship now strained with her neighbor, Richard (who accuses her of the theft, though she denies it), but it ends up being loosely connected to other events through town--rebellion, arson, theft, adultary... the list goes on. 
 My favorite character, by far, was Stephen--Sir Geoffrey's son. Sent as a spy to Quaker meetings, his intention was to gather information regarding their rebellion against the king. Instead, Stephen finds himself liking the Quakers, much to his father's disappointment. I feel he was the most genuine character of the bunch. 
 Admittedly, things started to drag near the end. Once the major action occurred, it was like drudging through the details to reach a conclusion. And I'm not sure I entirely liked the conclusion; it felt patched together and unlikely. Can't go into much more detail without spoiling it, but the people who wound up together seemed more due to lack of options, since most others disappeared/died/etc. I could have done without the romance... and such explicit romance at that. 
 But the epilogue brought it all together, and everything came full-circle. I suppose I can forgive it, since the epilogue was nicely done. And they so rarely ever are.