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It's hard for me to say why this book didn't really work. The alternate-history setting is interesting, though not as well defined as I would have liked. The magic is solely in the form of Things of Power, which interests me, particularly the "doors" which are portals between two places. The main character, Mina, has a door that leads to a private stronghold buried deep somewhere in the mountains, and who doesn't dream of that? Houghton's also very good with the seamanship and there's always a good sense of what it's like to be at sea.

At the top of what dissatisfied me is the awkward and in some cases poor characterization. A lot of what we know about everyone, we know because Mina tells us so, not because we see it in the depiction of these characters. Mina's mother and sister are particular victims of this problem; her mother is secretary of state and supposedly powerful, but what we see of her is a whiny, weak, uncontrolled woman whose behavior toward her children simply doesn't translate into what a secretary of state needs to be. Her sister Charlotte...I started out thinking she was developmentally delayed, then that she was a slut, and on page 169 it's confirmed that no, she's just an opium addict. Houghton gives more attention to Mina's crew, who attain a little more individuality, but only Rohad comes across as truly unique.

Mina's character isn't that much better. She's a 104-year-old woman who's trapped in the body of a 10-year-old, so presumably she knows how men and women relate to one another (and she's got a sister who's been impregnated more than once) and yet she can't figure out why Rohad wishes she was physically ten years older than she is? She's supposed to be this experienced intelligence agent (I assume that's what she is) and yet a wizened old fisherman gets the better of her? I never really warmed to her, and I think that made it hard for me to stay connected to the book.

The writing craft is better than average, though I think the structure of the plot suffers because some things are fully explained later than they should be and are insufficiently foreshadowed beforehand. And this book *really* needed another editorial pass, starting with italicizing the ships' names. Two errors on the first page...not a good sign. There's a lot of potential here, and I see that the author intends this to be the first book in a series; a second volume, now that the world and the main character have been established, might be an improvement.

I received this review copy through First Reads.