May try again later, since I wanted to like this. But so far, the world-building seems...okay, but nothing special the way the other reviewers seem to think, the dialogue feels a big unnatural, and I'm not feeling any sort of tension. The guy on the cover looks East Asian, but in the book itself, so far the only Asian thing mentioned is how the palace women sequester themselves from men. 
 For real Asian-based world building, please read The Twelve Kingdoms series by Fuyumi Ono.