This excerpt really surprised me. I admit that I pick books based on the description and the cover. I know I shouldn't but there it is. The cover for this book is dull. There is nothing descriptive or eye catching. Sadly for this reason I would not buy it for the school. Students don't have time to devote to browsing so covers play into their choice. I wouldn't buy a book in a genre that doesn't get much attention that also had a dull cover. It just wouldn't get checked out. This is of course a shame but a fact. Ignoring the cover, I really enjoyed the bit that I read. The word choice and sentence structure is beautiful. The characters are interesting. I don't usually read within this genre but I would like to know how this ends.