3.5 stars 
 Decent fantasy element, relative historical accuracy for its kind, but a weak heroine, weaker supporting characters, unnecessary love triangles, and a lot of world-building is thrown at you. I would recommend Vampire Academy, Burning Glass, the Devil's Kiss duology for something with a similar feel that's a bit better on the development end of things. 
 It was engaging for the most part but could have been better-written particularly at the beginning. 
 She looked like an angel gliding across the marble in her white dress. We all looked like angels, all in the same virginal white with our hair coiffed perfectly in braided chignons 
 All the female characters in this book suffer from heavy gender stereotyping, particuarly the character of Dariya who is very weakly developed and seems at times more like a plot device, most often playing the part of the shallow, boy-crazy side character used to make Katerina look "strong,". 
 The dance master called for the mazurka and Dariya squealed. "This is my favorite! Oh, Katiya, I don't know why I was so worried about tonight. I never dreamed the ball would be so wonderful!" 
 Given the heavy gender roles in this time period, it isn't that surprising for Katerina to be more on the weak and archetypally feminine side but she could at least have realized she wasn't that strong, which would make her more likable and relatable, or have had someone to be more of a voice of reason, perhaps Dariya so that the typical conventions of a female side character could be broken. 
 However, instead of breaking the typical tropes of this kind of genre, the author further builds upon them by making Katerina a weak character trying to be strong. 
 "I do not want to move to some dark country in the mountains," I said, which was partly true. "What am I going to do?" 
 I preferred dull scientifice tomes to romances and was eager to retire to my room to delve into the da Vinci book. There was secret knowledge to uncover in science. All romances ended exactly the same way: a girl realized that the boy she had hated all along was the only person in the universe who can complete her soul. I did not blieve for a minute that my soul could be completed by some surly boy. 
 However, some time later, the author goes ahead and adds an unnecessary love triangle anyway. 
 In addition Katerina's mother is almost unnaturally hysterical and mainly talks about marriage while her father - of course - is the pragmatic one who actually cares about her interests. 
 For the sake of pacing, some of the world-building in this book had to be a little thrown-upon but the element of the royals being faeries was particuarly tell-not-show, Katerina merely informing us once that there is a Dark court and a Light court and people pledge allegiance to one or the other but this never gets developed upon the way it should be. It can also be discomforting to some readers the way history gets archetypalized to "good" and "evil" sides, particularly given Alexander III's track record with minorities and cracking down on freedom of the press et. al (view spoiler)[but I guess an undead chauvinistic monarch is worse than a mortal one (hide spoiler)]. It also should have been explained why Katerina needed to be so emo about the "darkness" that was consuming her by using necromancy when it was in her view for good. Overall, it's a decently engaging read but not the best of its kind.