3 1/2 stars, really, but I liked this book overall. It was a little slow-moving to start, but I found the characters and overall world to be interesting. There was a mixing of class roles and culture that made the characters, even the lesser ones, quirky and more complex. I would have liked Martise to have been a little less subservient, but I appreciated her scholarly background and photographic memory. I also thought Silhara as low-born hero with an aristocratic lineage farming orange groves around his crumbling manor created some nice imagery.