I enjoyed the story, the plot was fantastic as were the characters once I got to know them. There was simply too much waffle - parts, especially the beginning of the story, were told in copious amounts of words, where a few pages would have been suffice. At times it was a real struggle.
The plot though, was great. The main character, Rupert (British) inherits a vast fortune but must live in a fictitious small country on continental Europe. The story is of how he meets a girl, the locals, gets into the military/political side of the country, and builds relationships. The whole story is told through letters, journal entries and the occasional newspaper article which is interesting as you see things from different people's points of view.
All in all, whilst the storyline is interesting, too many chapters spend too many pages describing tedious, and often irrelevant parts of the story. I wouldn't bother.