I enjoyed this more than I expected. It’s quite deceptive – starts off as just another story of a teenage daughter of the local warrior ruler (slight twist in that it’s her mother rather than her father) who gets into trouble by picking sides in difficult politics and trying to intervene. But about two-thirds of the way through it turns out that we have been slightly misdirected, and the story is now about Flora needing to escape from the life-threatening consequences of her own (well-intentioned) actions; and then it gets into the unexpected re-imagining of her family’s own recent history, and ends very well. Points also for use of ð and þ.