There was a bit of politics, unavoidably, but I thought S.Smith did a good job of not getting too bogged down in it and I actually managed to follow along with all the plots and conspiracies pretty well I thought! My only beef with the author was that she used '.then I fell unconscious. And I really enjoyed all the court intrigue with the fans and dresses and secret letters etc.

I liked the way the magic in it was just sort of incidental - oh, by the way, my cloak was enchanted by a mage to resist rain. There were some really original ideas in this, the colourwood trees and the Hill Folk, and the way the different hours of the day were referred to as 'blue' and 'gold' etc. She was a LITTLE bit dense regarding Shevraeth and his feelings for her - I mean come ON woman, why ELSE would he ask for a kiss as a wager, hmm? And her 'knee-length' hair got on my nerves a bit for some reason, but other than that I thought she was a good strong independant female character for all the feminists to rejoice over. Mel was good too - she actually had some faults, which I liked, and she didn't always outwit the baddies or escape capture too conveniently. I do like a drawling hero! Although I wasn't a fan of his 'pale blonde' hair which kept reminding me of Malfoy. I thought Shevraeth was great, very clever and mysterious and suave. I enjoyed it much more than I did the first time! Actually I couldn't remember reading Court Duel at all previously, only Crown Duel, so unless I have a very short memory I must not have read the second part/novel very attentively. I've revised my opinion of this book (or should I say these books?) after a second reading, so instead of editing my old review I shall write another here.

Crown duel book