The novel, Bardic Voices, aka "The Lark and The Wren", is the start of a series by Mercedes Lackey. While I've enjoyed M. Lackey's works for several years now, I'm starting to get bored with the pattern of her books. Poor pittiful wretch gets really screwed over, gets really lucky, happiness ensues. Maybe I was just extra frustrated by how every one of her heroines finds their true love with such aclarity, while I muck about in loneliness. It's hard to escape into a book, that spends most of it's time reminding you of how pathetic yoru life is.