Zen Cho’s writing is as original and quirky and delightful as her heroine, and this charming little story, which manages to pack a heck of a lot into only a few pages, is as sharp and funny and honest and whimsical as Sorcerer to the Crown (which I read first). There are shades of Heyer and Austen and Clarke in her writing, of course, but it’s Heyer with (gasp) people of color! and bluntness about sex! and colonialism! and gender relations! I’ve run out of synonyms for delightful and charming in trying to describe her writing, but it’s both of those things through a fresh and much-appreciated lens that is entirely Cho’s own.