The book starts out with the kingdom (queendom?) of Inkasisa running out of food with the enemy on their doorstep. Our 2 main characters are Catalina, the condesa, and Ximena, the decoy condesa. The book opens with this horrible situation and the townspeople in perile, but since none of the characters or plot had been introduced or explained yet, I didn't feel any connection to Catalina & Ximena or their situation. It probably gets better as the story progresses, but I'm not convinced yet. The cover is stunning though.