Now before I write this review, I do have to state one thing- Snyder's heroines have a tendency to be a little bit of a Mary Sue at times. In some situations that would be a bad thing, but Snyder is so talented that most of the time you just don't care. 
 This book follows the character of Opal, a glassmaker who was introduced in 'Magic Study'. After the discovery of her glass powers, she was admitted into the magic academy. The only problem is that she seems to be a one trick pony & she's all too willing to believe that. All of her classmates seem to dislike her. So when she's given the opportunity to travel to the Stormdancer lands & use her glass blowing expertise to discover the reasons why their glass storm orbs have been shattering, she takes it. What was supposed to be a somewhat "simple" mission turns deadly as she discovers that someone really wants to stop her from helping the Stormdancers. 
 I really enjoyed this book & for the most part I really liked the character of Opal. She was interesting, but her constant need to play the victim irritated me at times. (Luckily she seems to be slowly improving.) I loved the descriptions of glass blowing- they were very vivid & I liked that the author appears to have done (as far as I know) a lot of research on the process. I will warn people that at times the plot was a little predictable- I was able to somewhat figure out who the bad guy was (although there was a twist I wasn't expecting). Plus you are pretty much able to predict the pairings, which takes a little bit of the fun out of the guesswork. 
 Bottom line- if you liked the Study series you will like this book. If you didn't like them then this book isn't likely to change your mind. If you haven't read the Study series, I'd recommend that you wait on this book- a good portion of the plot assumes that you've read the previous series.