This was real struggle to finish, I hadn't read the first book so that might have been some of the problem but I just wasn't that interested in the characters or the story line. The story line felt contrived and full of mysterious plot holes, it relied a lot on Kitty storming around and making big speeches and promises but then never actually following through, I felt like she was a pretty weak character. The barons loom large but make a brief appearance at the end and don't actually show any real power.

Spoiler

That David turned out to be Della really annoyed me, Haemophilia is a recessive gene and it's carried on the x gene, girls have two (one from each parent) and boys get one (one from their mother) so if Robbie (a male) was a haemophiliac he got it from his mother- Della i.e. he didn't get it from his royal Russian father. It's just annoying, the author clearly did a bit of research but that it's carried on the x gene is pretty basic.