The romance and some of the characters were... bleh. Very shallow.
The romance was TOLD instead of SHOWN and this was one of those things where every male seemed to be obsessed with the main character. There was hardly any dialogue between Cyrene and the king. Then when they spent the most time together, there was literally no dialogue at all. We were just TOLD that they spent time together and that it was fabulous.
She and Eric paced the deck, discussing everything from geographical formations to ancient history to gardening. Over meals, they found themselves contemplating various cultural differences between the cities of Byern, and at night, they practiced languages and read aloud late into the night. They listened to a minstrel on board, danced their favorite jigs, taught each other card games, and watched the sunset over the Taken Mountains.
This is literally a recap of the most time they spent together—four days. We're given no dialogue, no conversation, no experience of any of those events. We're just told that they happened.
This romance could have been so fantastic. There was definitely some chemistry there, we just weren't privy to any of their moments together and that was a bummer.
tl;dr
* Good story
* Interesting world/fantasy
* I like the magic elements
* The romance had POTENTIAL but it was very poorly executed
* The whole "every male in the world is in love with the MC" thing is sooo annoying