Hot damn! Now, this is quality historical fiction. The author obviously did her research and her writing was a delicious treat. Usually, when there is a story within a story I get bored with one of them and start hoping to get to the other as fast as possible but thankfully this book didn't suffer from that. Both stories were fascinating and entertaining. I thought about reading the second book but I haven't heard much enthusiasm about it so I think I'm going to leave off this series at its high point.