The writing was skilled, but that didn't translate into an engrossing plot and characters that I wanted to cheer on. The part that I read (approximately a third of it) wasn't bad, but there are just so many other books out there with the potential to actually make me invest in the characters' outcomes that I couldn't make myself finish this.

I'm clearing out my feedback shelf. This review is from 2012.

I loved The Floating Islands and, while this wasn't quite as good for me, House of Shadows is a similarly satisfying elegant fantasy. The characters are attractively flawed, the world building is stunning and the plot revolves around politicking rather than action. I found it a little slow to start with and could really have done with a list of characters (complicated naming system with several characters having more than one name) and a map (all good fantasy books should have a map as far as I'm concerned), but I was reading an ARC so maybe these were included in the published book. As with The Floating Islands, I'm not sure it will have wide appeal, but will work for kids who like character-driven fantasy.