I loved Akio too.
There are conniving cousins, a hungry press, a scowling but handsome bodyguard who just might be her soulmate, and thousands of years of tradition and customs to learn practically overnight.
I would have known which artists oppose the imperial family.
Perhaps I have read books with the same premise about a thousand times, perhaps the story has been repeated in so many instances it has ingrained itself into my memory.
I have no proof of this.
In a story with so much lost love I would have imagined a few moments in the novel where I might have been presented with an opportunity to tear up, but it never happened.