see_sadie_read 's review for:

The Alchemists of Loom by Elise Kova
4.0

I'm vacillating on this book. Some aspects of it I absolutely adored. But I also found it painfully slow at times and was disappointed to find that it didn't wrap up nicely in the end. It's not a precipitous cliffhanger, but it's not really and ending either.

On the positive side of the equation, I found that once I had enough information to understand what was happening (and this took a while) I liked the world and the characters. There is a lot going on here, with the large, multi-cultured world and several races. I appreciated that the romantic subplot was slow to develop and didn't take over the plot when it did. And I think most of the writing was really lovely. It got a little purple at times, but mostly it was quite lyrical and a pleasure to read. Oh, and the cover is Awesome!

This was the first book by Kova I've read, but I'd be well up for another one.