Yes. Yes it gets a five star because it's brilliant, moving, queer and generally it's Alexia Hall but it is a mildly bitter 5 because I am soooo not a slow burn kind of human and ill tell ya. She be a slow burn this book. 
That being said, it's historical queer fiction at its finest with intrigue, ferociousness, big ideas without terms of the times and characters that take up space in the perfect ways. 
Read to your slow burn hearts content.