Full rating: 3.5 rounded up (explained below)

There's a lot of elements I loved about this book - Sirin's voice in particular, especially in her footnotes, and some of my favorite tropes (inconvenient arousal is always good for some cackling), the chemistry between Sirin and Berne, as well as a unique and relatively easy to understand magic system set in a slightly more advanced fantasy world that felt refreshing when compared to stereotypical fantasy.

I was expecting the story to continue on past where it ended, however. There didn't seem to be a clear climactic conflict at any point, so I missed some closure there. It truly felt like this was a nice warm up into a new setting, but with the foot notes alluding to future plot events, none of those things I thought I'd be getting came to fruition. What was there was still good though, definitely enjoyable when it came to Sirin and Berne, but the story around them felt a bit like not being served enough food at a restaurant.

Here's where my rounding up comes into play...
There were some pretty egregious copy-editing issues: missing words, repeated sentences, formatting, and punctuation which are a personal struggle point for me when reading. I rounded my review up to 4 stars because this is an indie author, and she likely doesn't have the same kind of editing team behind her as traditionally published materials. A lot of folks can go both ways on this topic as well, and it didn't feel fair to ding her in the overall rating.

Ultimately a good first foray into a new fantasy setting with enjoyable characters and plot, just not enough to get a sense of closure with them.