I would give this four and a half stars if I could. A very delightful book. It hit a few of my particular buttons (faeries, queen of the underworld, alternative historical fantasy Earth), but besides that it was just a very good story. It was a quick, easy read, but I'm sure part of that was just that I was enjoying it so much I wanted to find out what happened next! I also loved the fairy tale connections--Pinocchio was the biggest, of course, but I found echoes of Beauty and the Beast as well.

I have just a few quibbles. Clothing was very important in the book, at least at the beginning, but the clothing was not always described enough for me to picture it clearly; I could extrapolate from what I had to actual historical clothing, but not all of the details seemed to fit. More importantly, while it's implied that only men are allowed to become sorcerers, the one woman who seems to be able to do magic is a villain and (view spoiler)[comes to a rather horrible, if deserved, end (hide spoiler)].

I will definitely be purchasing the sequel as well as Ms. Dolamore's other upcoming book when they come out on Kindle. I hope that the sequel will delve more deeply into fairy culture and how sorcery works.