This is the only historical fiction book about Korea that I have ever read and I have pretty much zero knowledge base for Korea. (Some art history knowledge, but that's it and it's very minor.)
Sondok is a neat character, because...at least from the point of view of someone with only basic knowledge about the histories of Asian cultures...you don't think of women in roles of power in these civilizations. Granted, there were not many, but it did happen. A bit of Google research and I've learned she was the first queen of Korean, which I knew from the book, and the second female sovereign in East Asian history. And now I'm annoyed because I can't possibly continue until I look up the first. Sigh. Oh, it's Himiko from ancient Japan. I read about her in Esther Friesner's books. Cool. Anyway...
The main plot of the book is Sondok trying to find herself. She likes astronomy, but she's a girl, so she's not supposed to study it. But she's also her father's heir, so she feels she needs to develop a connection with the stars. She also struggles with identifying both with Buddhism, a more recent religion in her region, and the Shamanism from the older days of her civilization. She slowly comes to realize she loves her childhood friend, only to have him devote himself to a monastery. She loses her mother, who is set aside and forced to join a monastery herself, because it's apparently her fault she didn't produce a male heir. (*grumble grumble*) And throughout the book, she faces off with her father's new Chinese advisor, who basically hates her because he thinks she has too much power for a woman. But of course, she wins the day.
I like this book, because Sondok is definitely a character most of us can relate to, what with her struggling to figure out what she really wants out of life and how to get it. She doesn't ring too modern, even though you don't think of women in ancient East Asia doing what she does. But she did. And her observatory still stands, the oldest existing one left in the world:
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