This was one of my more pleasant discoveries on Kindle Unlimited. I gave it 3 stars because I liked it, which seems to be what goodreads encourages. No, it's not the greatest book ever in its genre (I think that's what goodreads meant 5 stars to mean). But it's pretty good.

I don't even usually *like* this genre much, which made this book an even more pleasant discovery. It's pretty rare that a fantasy novel with superpowers can really draw me in (I find myself unable to suspend disbelief). But the author did an excellent job of describing the powers and their limits, so you can understand the logic of the world (many fantasy works fail to do this). And within those limits, she tells a good story. If this were my favorite genre, I'd probably like this a lot more.

Another pleasant discovery in this book: some of the characters, when first introduced, initially felt like the cardboard cutout stereotypes (e.g., the princess who is only worried about her dress and the parties). But as the story develops, you find that there is a lot more to this princess--a great deal more, and she turns into a very interesting character. Same goes for some of the others in this story and its sequels.

In my opinion, the romance in the story was perhaps the weakest part (but I'm not a sucker for romance novels either, so maybe that won't bother you). Somehow the relationship manages to transcend class, but why that works was not developed, and that made it hard for me to believe. But this was only a relatively minor problem, I thought.

All in all, thoroughly likable and interesting characters, and a good story. After reading all three books, I went out and looked at others by this author (and there are some other good ones too). ( )