Thirteenth Child: Frontier Magic book one – Patricia C. Wrede

Yes, the fact that it’s the first book in a series is important. Otherwise, if you read through and finish it like I did without knowing that fact, you may feel inclined to be annoyed at the book for having too much back story, character building and world building and not enough plot.
Because that is what a good six sevenths of this book is, world and character building. Okay, the AU colonial America setting (with magic!) is shiny and definitely interesting and the characters aren’t half cool either but I wouldn’t have been fretting over whether plot was going to show up in the next couple of pages if the ‘book one’ had been plastered a bit more over the book. (It only appears on the spine and the title page, not on the cover or blurb.)
If it weren’t for the fact the writing was very comfortable to read (and feels like home) and that the magic system was very interesting, I may have chucked the book once I had gotten halfway through. Which would’ve been only a couple of hours after I picked it up, because reading it was very fun and the pages flew past. (Although some of the flying was in anticipation of plot…)

And so, I’ve done my whinging about there wasn’t enough plot and the pacing wasn’t what I was expecting and I can talk a bit more about what it’s about. So, possible spoilers ahead, especially for those who want to read this.

( Not that there's much of them... )

That shouldcover it. No, seriously, most of the book is world building and if I did go any further, it'd be boring and way too spoilery.
It was a fun read, except keep in mind it’s the first book in a series and the pacing won’t disappoint you too much.