I may come back to this, but I'm over halfway and other than a train ride, nothing has happened. That on top of a completely weird, seemingly out of character lack of sympathy shown at extreme bodily harm just turned me off.

On the whole, a fun historical adventure, set in the late 1800s, with a pair of society girls learning a great deal about their mysterious Romanian ancestry. There are some continuity problems as the plot thickens -- it's told in letters and scraps of diaries, in addition to the regular story. Not my favorite of Jessica day George's books, but pretty good for all that. ( )

So much potential, but this was really dreadful. The first half of the book was unbearable: nothing happened. Dresses, travel, a few oddities, stupid imagined romances. The second of the book was okay. Two female cousins (Dacia and Lou) finally meet in Little Paris (i.e., Bucharest, Romania) in the late 1800s, where their weird family (the Florescus) and evil grandmother have big plans involving destiny and politics. A great setting with enormous potential squandered. The characters were immature, underdeveloped, wildly inconsistent, boring, and predictable. At least Lou went from being a pushover to gaining some mettle while her cousin Dacia devolved. I should have read George's Castle Glover books... ( )

In the late 1890’s, Dacia and Lou, two American cousins, go to Romania to meet the other half of their family. Dacia has had a “scandal” in England, so this opportunity is well timed to get her away from that and perhaps see to it that her reputation is not quite ruined. While visiting the family, the girls meet their scary grandmother, and try to figure out why everyone is keeping secrets about a later family meeting. It frustrates them and causes them to get into all sorts of trouble while they look for clues.

This is a quick, fun fantasy/historical romance, that would be appropriate for middle schoolers. The romance doesn’t overwhelm the mystery aspect, which is foreshadowed heavily early on, so it should not be a big shock when the family secret is revealed. The girls are proper young ladies of the times, so nothing untoward happens in the romance area to make younger readers uncomfortable. I’ll be buying this whole series for my library. ( )

Fun. I actually read and enjoyed a partly-epistolary gothic romance - complete with sheltered high-society American girls thrust into strange situations in Romania, werewolves (etc), magic, a plot to overthrow the king, a secret society aimed at defeating monsters, and of course romance (somewhat predictable and rote, but it could get interesting over time). Plus a lot of interesting and complex characters, complex family relations, and serious changes for the protagonists. The switch of characters - the reckless, active girl falls into a deep depression, and her shy, introverted cousin simultaneously learns to speak up and act, becoming the driver of the pair - was interesting, and slightly convenient. The villain is...limited, a little toddler-tantrum in style ("If you don't do what I want I'll hurt someone you care about and make you watch!" was a frequent theme...I kept wanting someone to ask him "And how will you do that?" Pistols only go so far), and thoroughly dealt with by the end. It's a very interesting world, and I'd like to return there - see how the Archangels deal with the Florescus among them thereafter. ( )