Right off the bat I want to say that the cover art for this book is beautiful. I love the colors and I would certainly be drawn to this book if I saw it on the shelf. The book itself has left me feeling a bit mixed. I loved the world building from the descriptions of the landscape and the creation of the ghosts to the introduction of the 'Early Ones'. What I am struggling with is some overused cliches. It could just be because I've read a lot of books like this, but an extremely talented outsider that's partner gets axed comes across as cliched to me. When we were first introduced to Corian I could tell you that he was going to die. And given that he was of a higher caste I knew his family wasn't going to accept her apology and that it was going to create further drama. And all of that has been used to death. I wish a different technique had been used to get us to where we ended up when the prisoner of war was introduced. I do, also, love the relationship that we are seeing between Adena and Talin, strong non-competitive female relationships are always welcomed in my world.