I feel quite torn about this one. Originally I wanted to give it three stars but as I was writing the review I realised just how frustrating I found this story. 
 There is one glaring problem with the story: everything revolves around Noll's selfishness. 
 The society here is ruled by the women. When men come of age they "find the goddess" in one woman in the village, and spend the rest of their lives struggling to make their goddess happy in any way they can. There are rumours that in the past the men were the ones who had all the power, but no one can remember that far back. 
 Noll is the main character, and Noll is one of the most selfish characters I have ever had the displeasure of reading about. Everything she does is based on her selfish desires to have Jurij for herself, despite the fact that he is in love with her sister. Moreover, when the time travel element is introduced, Noll decides that she likes one of the young boys there because he reminds her of Jurij. Not because of who he is himself, but because in her mind she can link him to the boy she's obsessed with. 
 From the start of the book, everything that happens has some link back to Noll's love life - even if it originally seems like there's no association between the event and her relationships. 
 There were some basic links to a sort of Beauty and the Beast tale, but they weren't expanded on enough to save the story. Had the relationship between Noll and the Lord been expanded on more, I might have been more forgiving. 
 As it is, I'm afraid this one ended up making me cranky.