I enjoyed this book, although there were some stylistic things that made it confusing at times. I think these issues will go away in future books, though. I hope the author releases them on Smashwords as printed books can be expensive (and I like reading on my e-book reader).The story has a cool slant, and it does have meaning relevant to us, if you can find it (although it may require a little uncommon knowledge before you can really see that meaning in full). The fantasy elements were quite interesting.Someone else wrote a review on this book, and I feel to comment on it. Here’s the link:http://feministreview.blogspot.com/2009/02/domain-of-illusion.htmlI would not call this overly stylized, except maybe in Naora's training. The story as a whole, however, is rather unusual, and I haven’t seen anything like it. I might agree that the book was hard to get through, but I disagree that it is “… to be read purely as a guilty pleasure.” The book has value in what it teaches, and in the imagination portrayed—it’s not what I would call a pleasure read. However, I do find more pleasure thinking back on it than I did while reading it.Heavy use of adjectives didn’t stick out at me so much. It was mostly just how things connected together, especially when the author wrote about the prince brothers.I thought the author did quite well with the mood, or tone of the book. The sense of mystery with the smoke creatures was quite promising—along with the other magical elements of the story. ( )