I picked up this book because of the setting: a courtesan district in Tang China. It was not exactly the romance I expected; the hero was far more ordinary than I'm used to my romantic heroes being. Still, after I adjusted my expectations closer to 'realistic', I was quite happy with it. It was a genuine and tender love story. The hero is a perpetual student with a managed gambling addiction; the heroine is a clever maidservant and ex-prostitute with a strawberry birthmark on her face. And I really, really liked the mystery and its conclusion. I'm eager to read other books in the setting; the romance in book 2 looks intriguing and I have great hopes for the possible pairing in book 3. 
 Stylistically the writing sometimes threw me off. Usually I'm very sensitive to that kind of thing but in this case I told myself the stylistic oddities were part and parcel of the 'historical China' aspect and that worked pretty well.